The Red Pyramid
by Sailor Phoenix1997
Summary: Yu-Gi-Oh mixed with Rick Riordan's The Red Pyramid. Seto Kaiba and his sister, Téa, and Mokuba discover that they're Egyptian magicians and must learn to survive with an entire organiazation and evil god trying to kill them. But only really being a family two days a year for ten years can present a problem. Rating could go up.
1. Chapter 1

I'm sorry people! But I think this'll work. I was trying to relax for the first day of summer break and was reading and got this idea. I found characters that work with it and a pairing I like. I think it really works. I own nothing but the idea and please review! Told in two perspectives.

_**Seto**_

Alright. We only have a few hours and I'm really not in the mood to repeat myself, so pay attention. If you're reading this your life could already be in danger. First find the school and locate the locker. I'm not going to tell you which school or what locker because if you're the right person you'll just know. The combination is 13-32-33. After reading this hopefully you understand.

Alright, Téa's telling me I've stalled long enough and to get on with the story. Fine! I guess it all began the day my newer chief of security blew up the Domino museum.

Now there's something you need to understand, when I was seven my mother died in an accident, leaving me and my two little siblings with my father. My maternal grandparents, or my mother's parents, hated my dad's guts so they had this huge court battle for my sister. After six lawyers, two fistfights and a near fatal attack with a spatula (Do NOT ask), they officially won the right to keep my sister, known as Téa Gardner. Three years later when Dad died in a car accident, they dumped me and my little brother, Mokuba, at an orphanage where we were adopted by Gozaboro Kaiba.

According to the court order Mokuba and I have to spend two days a year with Téa, the Fourth of July and Christmas Eve to be exact, without our grandparents watching us. Normally we'd be accompanied by Roland, my old chief of security, but he died a few months ago, and I'd gotten Odion Ishtar as a replacement. On the Fourth it was easy to find something to do for visitation day but Christmas Eve's another matter in itself. Normally I'd load Téa and Mokuba into a plane and take them to Colorado to ski or London to do some sightseeing, but that day a blizzard was supposed to blow in so all flights, even Kaiba Corp ones, were cancelled.

As the limo pulled up in front of my grandparents' flat I noticed that Odion looked nervous. Now Odion's a big, Egyptian guy. He's got a long black ponytail but other than that he's clean shaven, a bunch of tattoos on the side of his face, and hands that looked strong enough to crush rocks. You'd think it would take a lot to make him nervous. But sure enough he was nervous. He was wringing his hands, looking out the windows and rolling his shoulders from time to time. Not like him at all. I'd decided to take Mokuba and Téa to the museum to see the Rosetta Stone which was on tour around the world, touching every museum in every city on the continent. And this was the real one.

Mokuba was happy to see his sister as long as he didn't see our grandparents. Now Mokuba's the spitting image of my father, long black hair, bright blue-gray-violet eyes and light caramel skin. But Téa and I are the spitting image of our mother, brown hair, blue eyes and fair skin. Our grandparents had made the excuse of not taking us in after Dad's death by there not being enough space in their house which I knew was just crap. They really just didn't want Mokuba or me around. They kept Téa because she was, pretty much, Mom in every sense. Her personality, her dreams, her habits. All of them the same thing as our mother. They don't want me because I'm just as stubborn as my father and I'm a dang boy! Mokuba looks like Dad and they just hated him so you get the idea.

When I finally pushed myself out of the limo I noticed someone standing by a tree in my grandparents' lawn. He was hidden by shadows but I could tell he was dressed in a fedora, trench coat and was shaped like a barrel. Upon sight Odion looked like he might throw up. Odion might've known that guy, I mean, he did have a life. But no one ever made him look as nervous as he did now.

"Mister Kaiba, let me handle this." I could've sworn I heard a note of fear at the end. "Go on ahead and get your sister sir." Mokuba jumped out of the car and bolted across the lawn. I stuffed my hands into my pockets and walked up the path and onto the porch. I barely knocked when Téa opened the door, holding her cat, Muffin. Now Muffin's a short-haired cat that looks like a miniature leopard, on her collar is a silver amulet. She looks absolutely nothing like a muffin but Téa had been four when she got her, so I guess you have to cut her some slack. Muffin had been a parting gift from Dad. Now as I'm writing this, Téa's standing over me so I'd better be careful about how I describe her.

Now I mentioned that she and I both look like our mother but her hair's a little darker than mine, sort of a mix of milk chocolate and dark chocolate while mine is a simple milk chocolate color and her eyes are a little lighter than mine but they're both around sapphire. Téa was dressed in a brown tank top, a green, short-sleeved t-shirt over it, an army-like shirt over that, a brown leather jacket over that, a pair of jeans and dark combat boots. She had on a silver heart with rhinestones and eagle wings on a silver chain around her neck. Tight on her throat was a little leather rope with a silver amulet hanging on it. Another early birthday present from Dad. She also had a pair of silver eagle wings with rhinestones on her ears. Okay. She didn't hit me so I guess I did a good job with describing her.

"About time you guys got here," she said snappishly, "I've been waiting for hours." Mokuba, completely ignoring Téa's mood gave her a hug, just under his sky-blue bandanna you could see the same leather rope that Téa had around his own neck with a silver amulet. I've also got one. Mine's got the Eye of Horus, an ancient Egyptian protection symbol. Our Dad had been an Egyptologist but didn't exactly travel with Mokuba and me to take care of. Mokuba's amulet has an ankh, a symbol for life. Téa's got the Knot of Isis. I believed Dad had his reasons for those specific symbols. I normally hid my amulet under all the turtlenecks I wore or in my pocket. True there were times when I just wanted to get rid of it, nothing more than a deadweight, but it was the last thing I had from Dad, besides Mokuba and Téa.

"Sorry about being late Téa, we had a little business to handle first," Mokuba said.

"Typical," she said. She tossed Muffin inside the house and grabbed her Ipod, in case we bored her. "Grandma! Grandpa! I'm off!" Our grandmother shouted something that sounded like "Don't let them in!" Like I'd want to step into the house! Seriously. I'd rather be skinned then tarred and feathered then boiled alive before considering stepping foot into that house. "So where are we going?" asked Téa as we walked towards the limo.

"I thought we'd go to the museum, the Rosetta Stone's on display." Téa looked at me like I was nuts.

"Really? Our second visitation day this year and you want to go to the museum to see a dusty old rock?"

"Pardon me Téa, but a blizzard's supposed to blow in so any and all flights in this area have been cancelled. If I could control the weather I'd make sure that we'd go somewhere else, maybe Egypt or someplace like that but I can't." I sighed and headed back towards the limo.

"Who's that?" Téa asked pointing towards Odion, who was still talking to the man in the fedora.

"I don't know. Someone Odion must know." Téa stole across the lawn (the front porch is on the other side of the tree so to us only the man in the fedora could be seen past the trunk) and leaned against the tree. I followed her, intending to drag her to the limo and get this visitation day overwith. But once I got within arm's reach of her I heard two names that made me freeze.

"Rose and John were fools to do something of that magnitude Odion! And you plan to follow in their footsteps?" Rose and John were my parents' names. But both names were common. Could that man be talking about another Rose and John or my parents?

"I plan to set things right Amos. I don't care the cost."

"And the Bloods?"

"John made arrangements and I've made sure they're still able to be used."

"You know the House'll never allow you to do this Odion. They'll hunt you down and-"

"Do you plan to duel me Amos?" Odion's voice sounded very dangerous. I hadn't heard that level of a voice since that spatula incident when I was a kid. "You never could beat me before. What makes you think you can now?" Téa took a step and cracked a stick under her foot. Both men stopped talking. I grabbed Téa by the arm and yanked her away just as Odion looked around. The man in the fedora did as well. His skin was the color of light coffee beans and his eyes were a sort of blue-gray-violet color. For some reason he tugged at a memory in the back of my mind. He looked so familar. The man, I guess he was Amos, turned and started walking away.

"Odion, don't do what you're planning to do tonight." And with that he was gone.

"What was that about?" Mokuba asked from the limo. Odion shook his head.

"Nothing sir. Let's go shall we?" He was hiding something.

As we left the car and headed up the museum stairs I noticed that Odion had grabbed his black leather workbag and tossed a few stones, I think, into the back of the car. As it drove away I could've sworn that it had refilled itself with three boys and a girl. Odion just walked by me as if it was the most normal thing in the world. The museum was empty, it was normally closed on Christmas Eve but I'd paid the manager to open it for us. And the man was standing just beyond the doors waiting for us. He was a portly man in his later seventies or early eighties in a yellow suit and red bow tie.

"Ah, Mister Kaiba, wonderful to see you. And the young lady?" That's what happens all the time. I'm world-famous for being a world champion at a card game called Duel Monsters and being the CEO of Kaiba Corp at age twelve and so when we went anywhere as a family no one knew that Téa and I were related. They never questioned Mokuba because he always appeared with me no matter where I went.

"My sister," I said bluntly, just wanting to point out that the matter was closed and I wasn't going to say any more on the subject.

"Oh, yes of course. How could I have not seen the reseblence!" I sighed, annoyed. "Now if you'll all just follow me I'll show you to the Rosetta Stone."

"I know the way," Odion said, walking right past the man. I gave Téa and Mokuba a light push after Odion. If either of them noticed that Odion was clutching his workbag so tightly his knuckles were turning white they didn't let it show. Odion led us past a few exhibits until we reached the Egyptian exhibit. Where there had once been a mummy (I mean a real mummy of an ancient magician named Anubis) was the Rosetta Stone. Three languages were engraved into the large peice of granite. On the top were ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics (the same picture writing Odion had etched on his face), Demotic (a sort of ancient Greek mixed with Egyptian) and finally just plain Greek.

"I thought the Rosetta Stone was a computer program," Mokuba said. Sometimes it's hard to remember that he's fiver years younger than my sixteen by the way he acts.

"Well that's partially true. There is a computer program named after this stone Mokuba," I started to explain. I have a photographic memory so if I read something I can spill it out exactly like the book said. It's a gift and a curse. "But the real Rosetta Stone was the key to the riddle behind hieroglyphics, discovered by Napoleon's army in 1799 and decoded by Thomas Young and Champollion. Young discovered that all three bands of writing carried the same mesage. Before, Egyptian hieroglyphics were pretty much chicken scratch to us surface people," I shot a look at Odion and he didn't seem embarrassed, "Champollion was the one who really decoded the text. It's pretty much a thank you letter from some preists to King Ptolemy V." I looked over at my family, who were all giving me this look that said, "You lost me." I tend to do that. "Never mind." Odion opened his workbag and pulled out a bicycle lock.

"Mister Kaiba, I must ask a favor. The curator, make sure he stays in his office. Lock him in with this." He handed me the bike lock. "And make sure you stay out of this room."

"What's going on?" Mokuba asked.

"You want us to lock the curator in his office? How?" Téa asked. I probably looked like an idiot just standing there holding the lock.

"He's in there already, sleeping on the job. But trust me, if he wakes he'll want to know what's going on."

"And I repeat myself. What's going on?" Mokuba asked.

"I'm setting things right. Please hurry. There's not much time." Téa and Mokuba pulled me out of the room and we managed to find the curator's office. After we locked him in Téa headed back to the Egyptian exhibit.

"What are you doing?" I demanded grabbing her arm. Normally I don't let people tell me what to do but when my chief of security says something it's probably for my best interest.

"After being a Kaiba all these years you really lost the Gardner sense of curiosity? I want to find out what the heck Odion's up to." She slipped out of my grasp and raced back to the exhibit. I really had no choice but to follow her. If anything happened where she got hurt my grandparents would blame me and make a huge public statement about it. She was crouching down behind a column not far from Odion. Mokuba and I followed her lead but I peeked around the corner. Odion's workbag was open on the ground, revealing a wooden box about two feet long, and there was a blue circle around him almost like someone had turned on florecents in the floor.

"Is that a boomerang?" Mokuba asked. In Odion's hand was a long ivory stick that did look like a boomerang. The glass around the Rosetta Stone had somehow opened like a box but lay perfect on the floor. Not a crack or scratch on it. Odion raised the boomerang and touched it to the stone. Then he began to write on it. Blue hieroglyphics glowed as they appeared. A pair of ox horns above a box and and X.

"Open," Téa said. That was just plain weird. How the heck could she read hieroglyphics? I could too but it was still just a huge shocker. Maybe it was one of those inherited traits from Dad. My grandparents were not going to like that one bit. Her fingers wrapped around her amulet. I remember doing that when I was younger and thought that by touching the amulet Dad's soul would give me a hand.

Odion raised his arms and started chanting, "_Wo-seer, i-ei." _Then a sort of irregular staircase appeared over an eye next to a sitting person with a beard, a reed with legs, a normal reed and a pair of legs. Surprisingly I knew what they meant. They were for Osiris, Egyptian god of the dead.

"Woo-seer. Never heard it that way."

"Heard what that way?" Mokuba asked.

"Osiris."

"That other word though. _I-ei. _It means come!" Before I could stop him Mokuba was on his feet running towards Odion.

"ODION!" he shouted.

"Mokuba!" I shouted standing up, slightly pulling Téa into the line of vision. Odion turned around, looking at us as if to say, "You shouldn't be here."

"Mokuba! Get ba-" Whatever he was about to say was cut off. The hieroglyphics glowed white and the ground rumbled. I pulled Téa behind the column just in time for the Rosetta Stone to explode.

* * *

When I came round, which I found a little hard to believe that I'd been knocked out saying that I'd been hiding behind the column with Téa, I found bits and peices of granite on the floor. My hand and face were just out of the protection of the column so I felt a few cuts. Under the right side of my body was Téa, who didn't look too bad. I looked around for Mokuba. The little boy had been slammed against the column when the Rosetta Stone exploded. There were a few cuts on his chest, arms and legs and he had a nasty-looking gash over his forehead. Peices of the Rosetta Stone had embedded themselves into the walls and surrounding exhibits. Huge statues, sarcophagi and other priceless artifacts had been toppled.

I turned my attention towards Odion, who was standing in the exact same place he had been before the explosion but he looked petrified. Then I realized why. Standing between him and us was a pillar of fire. I mean blood-red fire with white flames licking the edge. Then I realized it had more of the shape of a man's body. His laugh cut right through me like a chainsaw.

"Well done. Very well done Odion." His voice sounded like he'd been forced to eat an entire jar of honey. I had that experience at age six after a fight with Téa.

"Y-y-you were not summoned," Odion said pointing at the man. He pointed the boomerang at him but the man just flicked a finger and the stick shattered in Odion's hand. I reached around the column and grabbed Mokuba's arm. As long as Odion kept the fire-man busy I could get my siblings to safety. I pulled the boy into my arms and sat up, leaning Mokuba against the safe part of the column, took off my white coat and draped it over them. Every bone in my body was screaming for me to dive for the sword display, grab one and plunge it into the firey man's heart.

"True. I am never summoned. But when you open the doors you had best expect visitors to come in."

"Back to the Duat with you! I have the power of the Great King!" What the heck was Odion talking about? A Great King? What?

"Oh scary," the firey man said feigning fear. "But even if you knew how to use that power, I'd still come out on top." Odion kept his eyes on the man but I could tell he was trying to buy me time to get my family out. I shook Téa awake but she tried making grunting noises so I clamped my hand over her mouth, which was just about as effective as an alarm clock. Once she analyzed the situation I trusted her to keep quiet. Odion reached down into the box, which I noticed was covered in paintings of Egyptian gods, and pulled out a long stick like a ruler. His breathing remained calm and deep until the stick was as tall as he was. Téa made a weird noise, like a mouse being stepped on, and then things just got plain strange. Odion threw the staff and it turned into a snake. A pure white snake as thick as I was and just as tall. It landed at the man's feet and instantly turned to ashes. "An old trick Odion."

I reached for the biggest peice of Rosetta Stone around me but my fingers felt so cold and numb I couldn't pick it up. And I didn't trust myself to try. The fiery man snapped his fingers and a golden sarcophagus appeared around Odion. The more he tried to escape the more real it seemed to become. Then it started sinking into the floor! Odion gave me a desperate look.

"RUN!" he shouted. Then he was gone. The fiery man turned to Téa and me. Téa fainted dead away. To tell the truth I was frightened. And it took a lot to scare me. The man's face looked human but it also looked like a horrible animal like a wolf with it's snout hanging limply. The man smiled, showing fangs that looked sharp enough to just touch my arm and give me a cut so deep I'd need stitches. He came closer and closer. I pushed Téa away and backed up myself. If I could keep his attention on me maybe he'd ignore my siblings. He reached towards me and my hands tripped over something, probably a thin rod or something but it didn't help my situation. He came close to touching me but I felt my amulet grow so hot under my black collar, I swear, it was like someone was holding a burning match to my flesh. He flinched away, holding his smoking hand.

"So it's you," he snarled. Then he was gone. Just gone. Like a puff of smoke. I felt my eyelids becoming heavy as I became aware of two girls standing over me. One was dressed in a violet dress with a blue headscarf pulling back her strawberry-blond hair. Her violet eyes looked dangerous. The second girl I could barely see. She was dressed in black and I could see a white dragon pendant hanging from her chest.

"We should kill them now!' the blond said.

"NO!" Whoever the girl in black was, she was obviously in charge. "We were sent to keep an eye on the rouge and Bloods. Our job is done! The authorities can handle it from here. Go to the nearest portal that's not in cool-down and get back to the First Nome!" The blond snarled but did as told. The girl in black took a step towards me and I could've sworn I saw white hair hanging at her knees. "Well well well. I told the House to interfere with Odion getting a job with you. But no one likes listening to me." She turned away and started walking away. "You've really dug yourself a deep grave Pharaoh!" she called as my world slipped into total darkness.

* * *

**A/N: That's the first chapter. Yes. This has the Japanese timeline for Seto and Mokuba's orphanhood and uses the English names. Can't wait for the next chapter. PLEASE REVIEW!**


	2. Chapter 2

I got one review that bumed me out. Now I won't call the guy out, I believe everyone is allowed to voice their opinion but I've said it before. Only nice reviews and constructive critisism are allowed here! If you've got nothing nice to say, keep your trap shut! Seriously. When someone posts something, they've worked hard at it and want people to like it. If I misspell a word or don't exactly make sense in the wording then constructive critism is truely loved and apreciated. But if you're just going to say something to be mean, go find someone who wants to be bumed out. If you can't find anyone, look in yourself and find why you'd want to say something like that. Really. There's a reason manners were invented. Now onto something a little better.

_**Téa**_

Hi readers! Téa here. You didn't think I was just going to let my brother go on and on did you? No one deserves that torture. Alright so let's see. Picked me up, locking up the curator, Odion blowing up the Rosetta Stone, big fiery guy. Yep. I'd say my big brother covered all that. Now. After all that and my family and I came around the cops showed up and locked me in the curator's office. Using the same lock we'd used to keep him in there! Gosh. Of all the times for something to go wrong. This had to be one of the worst visitation days ever.

Long after lunch a "kind" officer came and took me home. Seto and Mokuba went to Grandma and Grandpa's place in their limo. Seto Kaiba getting in trouble with the law would be bad for business I guess. Thing is this officer didn't even bother to try making me feel at ease about this. He just went on and on about how much trouble my brothers and I were going to be in. Once I was back at home I was locked in my room. Muffin was locked in with me. But when I tried to pet her she hissed at me and darted under my bed. One heck of a present my dad gave me.

I picked up my Ipod and scrolled through my playlist. Nothing really caught my eye so I threw it on my bed in frustration. When music doesn't appeal to me there's a problem. I tossed myself on my back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I'd imagine Seto was telling his side of the story to the officers while standing outside. He hated being in our grandparents' house. I guess it had something to do with the court war Dad had with them. I honestly thought he and Mokuba got the better end of the deal. They could do what they wanted and didn't have to worry about where their money was going to come from tomorrow. Me, on the other hand, I had to worry about how I was going to study dance in New York after I graduated. I definately wasn't going to ask Seto to help me pay for it.

I thought about what happened at the museum. I'd read hierogliphics. I couldn't do that before. I mean, a friend of mine, Yugi Moto, had showed me the Winged Dragon of Ra card once before. I think Seto mentioned the game he likes, Duel Monsters. Well, Yugi's the only person to really beat my big brother. That card's written in an ancient Egyptian language and I couldn't read it before. But still, Odion's hieroglyphics. I fingered my amulet. Sometimes when I was in a good mood I'd hold it to my cheek and remember all the good times we'd had before he'd died. When I was in a bad mood, which tended to happen more often, I'd throw it across the room and stomp on it, cursing Dad for not being around or not fighting harder to keep me. I found that rather theraputic.

I pushed myself up and walked over to my desk. Now quick thing. My grandparents are total nutcases when it comes to my mother. I mean, Grandma emptied out the cabnet that normally would've held plates and cups and made a sanctuary to my mother. All her favorite peices of jewelry, every picture that even involved her, her school artwork from when she was like two, her degrees in dancing and science from college. All of it had it's own place. Not even the shadow of a peice fell on another. I pray I do not end up like them. I shoved a few peices of paper, a few bits of unreturned homework and a few newspaper clippings involving my brothers. Sure I don't hang out with them so much but I do care about what happens in their lives. Under that was a picture of my mom and me. (No Seto, it's not a shrine like Grandma and Grandpa have. It's a simple picture underneath a bunch of junk.) She was sitting on our porch holding me and Seto was sitting on her lap, ticking the nose of his baby sister. If I looked into a mirror and tried to compare me to Mom, I'd only have darker hair. Seto's got darker eyes but we're still spitting images of her. She was smiling at the camera like she and Dad were sharing an inside joke. Mom was wearing a white t-shirt with a rounded Egyptian cross, an ankh, the same symbol Mokuba had on his amulet. My dead mother, wearing the Egyptian symbol for life. I swear it was just cruel irony.

I put the picture back and took out a sheet of paper. Maybe if I tried to write a few of the hieroglyphics from the Winged Dragon of Ra card I could read them. I started to write when the inspector came into my room.

"Miss Gardner," he said. Now my room is more of the attic so he had to hunch over as so not to put a hole in the roof. "What are you doing?" What was this guy thinking? I was going to blow up the house with a paper and pencil?

"Math," I said.

"Why don't you sit down?"

"I'd rather not." The inspector tried to look official, a little hard to do when you're hunched over like Quasimodo. I had to force myself to keep a straight face. I have to give my brother credit. How Seto keeps a straight face at all times the way he does will remain one of those unsolved mysteries of life. The inspector asked me my side of the story and I told him everything from when Seto and Mokuba picked me up to now. The entire time his eyebrow was going up higher and higher as if it wanted to his face, which I couldn't exactly blame it for.

"Now Miss Gardner, Mister Kaiba was your escort tonight, correct?"

"Yes. It is visitation day and so Seto and Mokuba escort me somewhere without my grandparents today."

"And your...Um..."

"If you're thinking Seto's not my brother just because we don't have the same name, you might want to rethink what you've got to say inspector!" I spat. It really got that annoying when people suspected we weren't related. Even Grandma and Grandpa acted like Seto and Mokuba weren't their grandkids.

"I'm sorry Miss Gardner," the inspector said raising his hands as if I was about to hit him. Thinking back on it, I felt so ready to do that. "We're just trying to sort the innocent from the guilty."

"You can't blame Seto for what Odion did!" I hoped my voice would carry down the stairs. This guy was ticking me way off. No one trashed my friends and or family and I was so ready to give him a taste of a dancer's foot in the male pain center.

"Well Miss Gardner, Mister Ishtar is in Mister Kaiba's employment-"

"So whatever any of the employees at Kaiba Corp do is Seto's order? He tells them exactly when and how to move?" This guy just had to be the most irritating inspector that ever existed. "My brother is NOT responsible for what Odion Ishtar did! That was his own choice! And I think your eyebrow's trying to leave inspector!" I shouted. He immediately went into a perfectly normal face, as if he'd just walked in on two sleeping infants.

"Well Miss Gardner, we've already gotten the story from your... Er."

"BROTHER," I stressed. "You know. As in the son of one's parents. Yes. Seto is my brother." Adn what did this guy mean, he'd gotten the story out of Seto? Had Seto sold Odion out to protect his company? No. My brother could act like he'd do that but he cared about his employees, no matter who they were. At least, that's what I assumed. The Gardner sense of caring for others.

The inspector lead me down the stairs into the living room where my grandparents were sitting on the couch with Mokuba sitting at the feet of my brother, who was in an armchair about as stiff as he kept himself. Grandma, being the English-born girl she was, had made tea and cookies. But no one touched any of it. Never try one of Gran's cookies unless you really want to lose twelve of the twenty-four teeth you've got. Grandma was rubbing her hands together as her eyes darted from my brothers to the inspector to me. Grandpa, a large man that did both wrestling and football all through high school and college even doing minor leauge football for six years, was pacing and shooting dangerous looks at Seto that reminded me so much of when Dad was here for visitation day.

"Mr. and Mrs. Gardner, after looking at the evidence-" Seto scoffed.

"More like analyzing what you think happened instead of actually listening to the witnesses and making some story using barely a thread of truth." Grandpa popped his knuckles threateningly at Seto as if that would make him shut up. That's just it with my grandparents, they don't understand anything about Seto. If he wants to shoot his mouth off, by gosh he's going to do it!

"Based off what we've gathered," the inspector sounded like he wanted to strangle Seto or me or both of us. That tends to happen when we've got the stubbornness of our father, "It would appear that Mister Ishtar has joined an extremist organization in Egypt that is-" Seto stood up so fast, he knocked over the chair he was sitting in. Mokuba and I even took a step back, he'd never looked so angry before.

"I wouldn't have hired him if he was an extremist. He hasn't been in Egypt in over a year! He's got family here! He was born in Egypt true!" Seto spat, his neck turning red with rage, "Neither of his siblings have been in Egypt for the same amount of time! If I were you I'd be consoling his family, telling them that you'd try to find him!"

"Mister Kaiba, he obviously not only destroyed the Rosetta Stone but also blew himself into..." The inspector's eyes went sort of blank for a minute. "Yes, yes. Ever so sorry," he said in a monotone, almost like he was hypnotized.

"Inspector?" Grandma said, pulling me over to her and holding me tightly.

"Yes. Yes. Please pardon me. There's obviously been a mistake in our information."

"There's an understatement," Seto said, calming down. Mokuba looked out the window as the inspector left.

"What the heck was that?" Grandpa asked.

"I don't know dear. But I just hope that Téa won't be charged with anything." I yanked myself away.

"What about your grandsons?" I demanded. Seto looked at me surprised. I didn't exactly have a reputation for standing up for them but tonight was probably just getting to me. "They could be in trouble to! And you're not even showing that you care!" I heard the door open and close again. I snapped around and standing there, in the doorway was the man from earlier. Amos, I think, who'd been talking to Odion.

"You," snarled Grandpa as he pushed up his sleeves.

"Yes me. Now, must we be so violent?" He turned towards Seto, who was standing so one leg hid Mokuba from view and had his fists clenched. "Now now my boy. Don't worry. You and your siblings are perfectly safe." He took off his fedora and his black hair tumbled from hiding in a long braid with peices of amber woven into it. Seto kicked the chair he'd been sitting in back up and sat down very slowly. He had on that sort of look as if he knew the man but was trying to remember from where. The man walked right past Seto, tousled Mokuba's hair and looked at Gran, who jumped up and hid behind her husband, and took a seat right where she'd been. I retreated over to my brothers as Amos took off his coat.

"I demand you leave now!" Grandpa barked, veins popping out on his temple and neck.

"Careful Jeremy. Your blood pressure," Amos said. Seriously? My grandpa was about to bust this guy for daring to set foot in his house and Amos was worried about Grandpa's blood pressure? Nice priorities.

"What do you want?" Grandma asked. Amos looked over at my brothers and me.

"These three can't stay here now can they?" I looked at Seto, expecting him to explode about how his company could protect him but he was totally cool. Instead he had that sort of know-it-all smirk on his face.

"Amos? That's your name?" he said. Amos nodded. Seto's smirk broadened. I felt like I was missing something.

"What just happened?" I asked.

"Think hard Téa," Amos said.

"It was your last birthday with Mom," Seto said. I slightly remembered that. It was my fourth birthday party and Seto and I had gotten into a fight, I think he wanted to help me blow out the fifteen candles Mom had put on my cake and I said I was a big girl now and I could do it myself. After a lot of arguing my cake blew up and Mom and Dad split us up. The blue and white iced cake had splattered all over my friends, including Yugi Moto, and one of the other adults there. Mom had said one of us must've hit the cake while we were fighting. I focused on the man in that memory. He wore sunglasses and... a fedora in an attempt to hide his long braided black hair. Behind those sunglasses were blue-gray-violet eyes like Mokuba. I stared at Amos. There was no way. Amos smiled.

"Happy Birthday Téa," he said. Those three words.

"Uncle Amos?" I asked. Amos nodded.

"Yes. I'm John's younger brother, Amos." He smiled at the three of us, his neice and two nephews.

* * *

**A/N: Ta-da! Now this is a good part. Please! Kind reviews.**


	3. Chapter 3

**_Téa_**

Alright. For any of you who think it would be awesome to meet a long-lost uncle that you barely remember, THINK AGAIN! It's not awesome! He remembers you but you don't remember him! For all you know, he could be some freaky stalker! It's just plain weird! But Seto was smiling at him as if he'd planned this!

"Wait a minute!" I said raising my hands. "If you really are our uncle, why didn't you step forward to take in Seto and Mokuba after Dad died?" Amos leaned back into the sofa.

"Belive me, I wanted to. But after the incident with your mother, John was banished from the House of Life. They told me that if I came near him or his family again I could be executed. After I heard of his death I wanted to step forward but the threat still remained deep inside you three. So the House still forbade me from seeing you. When the police called me an hour ago in Brooklyn I just had to come."

"Wait a minute. Time out!" Mokuba said, making a T with his hands. "Let me get this straight. A building told you you couldn't adopt us? How crazy are you?" Amos just laughed.

"Not a house like a building, Mokuba. I mean the House of Life. I can explain more in Brooklyn."

"Which brings up another question," I said, "If you were here a few hours ago and all flights in and out of Domino have been cancelled, how could you make it from the Mississippi all the way to Brooklyn in less than a few hours. You'd be boarding a plane in Brooklyn by now if you'd heard about it an hour ago."

"She's got a point," Seto said. Amos chuckled again.

"I didn't fly, I took a boat."

"All rubbish," Grandpa said, making Mokuba and me jump. I'd quite forgotten my grandparents were in the room.

"There's no such thing as magic and all this Egyptian House of Life nonsense you and. And. And _your _kind have to say," Grandma said. My hand flew to my throat. For some reason I felt so offended I wanted to scream. Instead I gripped the chair as hard as I could without breaking it. Amos pointed out the window at the Mississippi River just a few miles away.

"And yet you decided to take up resideance on the _east _side of the river." Grandpa wrung his hands.

"Rose thought it would protect us." Amos smiled.

"Why does the side of the river matter?" I asked.

"In Ancient Egypt," Seto said, "It was believed that the east side of the Nile was for the living. Since the sun, or Ra, rose in the east while the sun set in the west when Ra would die for the night." I sometimes hated it when he went into dictionary mode. If he wasn't stopped he could go on and on for hours. Spent one Christmas Eve doing that soon after Dad died. Trust me, it was a nightmare! Luckily he didn't need to be stopped.

"Correct Seto." Amos looked at the clock and stood up. "Now, we'd best be off before the inspector comes back wondering why he let you three off the hook." Mokuba jumped to his feet in shock.

"You mean, you did that?" Amos chuckled and put his fedora on.

"An old trick. I'll teach you once your training has begun," Amos said as he headed for the door. Seto stood up without a word.

"Wait." I turned to my grandparents, now silent as churchmice on Sunday. "Gran! Gramps! Say something!" I said. Gramps looked at the floor like a shameful child.

"It's for the best dear." I was appauled. They'd fought so hard to keep me from Dad when i was little and now this uncle I barely knew showed up to take me away and they weren't putting up a fight? I was outraged.

"You can't be serious!" I screamed. Gran just set about cleaning up the tea mess and walked right by me like I wasn't there. Grandpa sat down in the armchair and turned on the T.V. I felt my throat closing up. They'd just given me up! "You're DISPICABLE!" I screamed before storming out of the house with the boys. I couldn't believe it. They'd acted like I wasn't even there. I hadn't noticed I'd stopped walking and started crying until Seto put his arm around my shoulders and wiped my tears away. I looked in his eyes and saw, for the first time, confusion and saddness.

"Let's go T," he said, pulling me along. Mokuba took hold of my hand and smiled at me.

"Don't worry Téa. You've still got us." I can't tell you just how much it made my heart feel like it was flying to hear my brother say that.


	4. Chapter 4

Thanks for all the reviews everyone. Sorry about the delayed update, I've been watching MythBusters (Currently my favorite show with real people) and I gotta tell you my favorite character is probably Jamie. He's all monotone and never shows emotion. It's just funny! Now. Back to anime and Kaiba.

**_Seto_**

I'll admit, seeing my grandparents treat Téa as if she wasn't even there just plain ticked me off! So I figured it was time for me to step up to the plate and take a position I hadn't touched in years: Big brother. I'd played the part of Mokuba's father since Dad died. So now with Amos I had to step down and take up my own position.

Amos lead us down to the river, which I'd never exactly paid much attention to before, and stepped into a reed boat much like the ones used in ancient Egypt. He took off his coat and draped it over, I think it was a person, and took a seat near the bow.

"Hurry up. The boat won't bite." I pulled my family into the boat but made sure the both of them could hold onto me in case the boat capsized.

"This is what you used to get from Brooklyn to here?" Téa asked. It made no sense because not even a jet could make it from Brooklyn to Domino in less than an hour.

"Yes, it is Téa. Now if I were you three I'd hold on to your suppers."

"What?" Mokuba asked. Suddenly the boat took off down the river and with a sudden lurch I felt like I was on free-fall on one of those rollercoasters that Mokuba had forced me to get onto. The sensation sent my stomach to my throat with butterflies ramming themselves into the walls. Lights flashed right by us as if towns were nothing more than fireflies. I opened my mouth to demand what Amos though he was doing but something kept my jaw clamped shut. THe boat began to slow and I looked around. The shoreline was very different from Domino. I recognized the Empire State Building in the distance and a few other buildings from various visits to the place.

"This is New York. But that couldn't have been-" I looked at my watch. We'd left our grandparents at five after ten in the evening. I hadn't even noticed the time passing while we were there but now it was ten after ten back in Domino. I looked at my family. Téa looked a little sick to her stomach but Mokuba looked as if he hadn't heard Amos' warning about holding onto his dinner and was about to let the fishes have it.

"Wow," Téa said. "I've only dreamed about coming here." She was simply drinking in the scenery, something I still can't grasp to this day because once you've traveled as many times as I have and seen as many cities as I have they all being to blend together until there's nothing spectacular about any of them.

"Welcome to the Twenty-First Nome," Amos said as we drifted into Brooklyn. The boat came to a jolting stop at a dock and Mokuba finally gave up his dinner to the water.

"Did you say gnome? As in the tiny Santa Clauses that people put in gardens?" Mokuba asked after recovering from his little seasickness spell.

"No. Nome. N-O-M-E. I've always hated gnomes. And the word comes from ancient times when Egypt was divided into-"

"Fourty-two nomes," I finished. "There were twenty in Lower Egypt and twenty-two in Upper Egypt. THe two countries were united into Egypt by the Pharaoh Narmer."

"Thank you Seto," Amos said, "Since ancient times the House of Life has gone global. Egypt is the First Nome and Greater New York is the Twenty-First. There's a total of 360 i believe. You've been keeping up with your Egyptian studies haven't you?" He picked up his coat but there wasn't a thing underneath it.

"Nope," Téa said, "Photographic memory." She stood up and stepped onto the dock with Mokuba close behind her. I stepped up and noticed a shipment warehouse with boarded up windows and a gaping hole where there should've been a door. Amos was leading us towards that. The thing looked like it was ready to fall over at the first good gust of wind that hit it.

"That's where we're staying?" Mokuba asked me. I grabbed his shoulder. No way was my family staying in that rickety shack.

"Of course it is. You're a little too far to see what this place really is. Step closer." Téa did as told and almost jumped about a mile into the air.

"Guys! You've got to see this!" I took a few hesitant steps and never once took my eyes off Amos. What was this man up to? THe second I stepped next to Téa the shack turned into a large, well-structured white house. There were two chimenys, one on each side, and the large door had no hinges to sswing open and not handle to pull. The windows were too high to reach even if I put Téa and Mokuba on my shoulders and had them reach for it. I had to admit, no human would want to come near the shack I'd seen from the docks, now ten feet behind me, so the house was protected from intruders that judged by appearances.

"Now, there is a very special way to open this door," Amos said, leaning against the white marble. I don't know what possessed me to do it but I waslked up to the door until I was a few yards away and raised my hand, felt a sort of yanking sensation in my gut and as my arm rose higher and higher as did the door until it opened to reveal a white marble sitting room with ebony woodworks on the couches and table. THe velvet was the same blinding white color. Just past the sitting area was a large statue made out of granite but I could only see the legs. "Well done Seto. Not the way I would've done it but well done." I felt something brush my legs and I looked down. There was Muffin, stroking her head and body against my legs and moving in a sort of infinity sign.

"Muffin!" Téa called. THe cat purred contentedly at my feet and looked up at Amos.

"Oh, yes. Of course." He reached down and placed a hand on the cat's head. "You are allowed to enter." With that, Muffin sat down and stood still as a statue. Téa picked up her cat and nuzzled it's head against her cheek.

"She must've snuck on board when we weren't looking," she said. THe cat purred and Mokuba yawned.

"I don't care if the cat's allowed in or not. Is there a bed around here?" Amos led us into the house. I looked at the statue. I recognized it from my father's Egyptology books that had littered our house before his death.

"Thoth, the God of Knowledge," I muttered. Amos smiled at me.

"Yes. Thoth is the only God still allowed into the House of Life." Téa pointed at a heiroglyph next to Thoth.

"That's it! The House of Life symbol isn't it?" The symbol looked like the foundation of a hourse missing an inch in the front with an ankh in the middle. House of Life.

"Yes it is," Amos said with a smile."Khufu!" he called.

"Gesundheit," Mokuba said. But in a few seconds a little man about three feet tall dressed in gold came down the stairs. Téa shrieked and Mokuba burst out laughing when we realized it was a baboon not a person. He was wearing a Chicago Bulls jersey. When Dad wasn't giving lectures at colleges all over the state he'd teach Mokuba and myself how to play basketball, knowing basketball stats and teaching us to love the Chicago Bulls. It still stuck with me.

"Is that a Larry Bird jersey?" Mokuba asked. By the way, Larry Bird played for the Bulls from 1979 to 1992. He'd been one of Dad's favorites.

Khufu, which I guess was the baboon, barked and jumped up and down like a happy three-year-old. Muffin hissed and puffed up as much as she could, successfully making her tail look like a bottle brush.

"Yes, it's Khufu's favorite basketball team," Amos said, "Now Khufu, please lead my niece and nephews to their rooms." Khufu barked, grabbed my hand and pulled. I guess that meant follow me. I pulled my family behind me and Khufu lead us up three flights of stairs before we broke the second floor. Khufu put Téa and Mokuba into separate rooms and me into a room in between them. I had to say, it was nice. THe four poster bed had blue and silver cloth hanging and blue sheets made of Egyptian cotton. The balcony had a good view of the river and Manhattan. But when I tried to open the doors I found them to be locked. I walked back to the door that I'd entered from and tried to open it but it too was locked. I heard a knocking on the wall.

"Seto!" Téa called from the other side. I walked over.

"I'm right here, no need to scream," I said. I felt a little stupid talking to a wall.

"Are you locked in?"

"Yep." I heard a bang and knew she'd hit the wall with her fist.

"Why would Amos do this to us? I mean, if we're family?"

"Probably to make sure we go to sleep like good little kids," I paused, leaning towards Mokuba's room to listen, "By the silence I'd guess that Mokuba's sound asleep by now."

"Alright, I'll try to sleep. But Seto."

"Yea?"

"Despite the fact that I'll want to forget this visitation day ever happened, I'm happy that we'll share Christmas for the first time in like a decade tomorrow," she said.

"Good night Téa," I whispered before kicking off my shoes and changing into a set of blue pajamas made of silk that were laying on the bed. The first thing I noticed when I set my head down, was the fact that the pillow was made of ivory with pictures of Egyptian gods and heiroglyphics engraved into it. I tried to sleep but the headrest wasn't helpful at all. It was more like it was put there to prevent sleep so I shoved it off. My first mistake in Brooklyn House.

* * *

**A/N: I planned on making this longer but when I tried to save it I had to log on again and lost it all to cyberspace. Trust me, it'll show up in the next chapter. Please review on this and I'll see ya'll next time.**


	5. Chapter 5

I love the reviews I've gotten for this story but I have to ask a tiny favor. Can I have at least one review a chapter? I'd really like that. Even if it's anonymous. Now, I've decided to wait a week in between updates of any book so. Let's say I updated this today and I updated another story tomorrow, then I'd try to update this story again by next week and the other story the following day. But the more reviews I get, the faster I'll update. Promise, now onto the story.

_**Seto**_

Alright, I have to say, of all the stupid things I've ever done in my life, not sleeping with the headrest was by far the dumbest. And no, it was not a dream. It was way too real to be a dream.

I had barely fallen asleep before I felt something start pulling me. When I opened my eyes I saw my body probably ten feet below me. I had the body of some sort of bird, maybe a hawk or something like that. (No Téa, I was not a chicken! Now shut up and let me talk! Gosh!) Anyway. There was some sort of a bright light and I saw myself over a city, definitely not Brooklyn. But I wasn't done with my little travels.

I was pulled into some sort of mountain and once inside, I swear if I'd been human, I would've had a heart attack. Inside the mountain was a sort of pyramid pulsing with red light. Even though it was some sort of illusion I could taste the evil it radiated.

Standing on a ledge, watching hundreds of demons work on the half-done pyramid, were two cloaked things. Both had their hoods drawn but I noticed one of them had the feet of a rooster. The second one was wringing his warty hands that were probably big enough to crush rocks the size of my head.

"Where is he?" asked the second one. His voice was rough, almost like he'd eaten nails and had one stuck somewhere in there still.

"Never question the master, fool!" screeched the rooster-footed one. Suddenly a pillar of fire appeared and both cloaked things fell onto their faces. The second I laid eyes on the pillar I felt myself fill with rage. But this time, the man inside the fire was more solid, almost like he'd figured out how to make fire a body. His horrible blood-colored eyes stared at the pyramid.

"How much longer Face-of-Horror?" he asked and the rooster-footed stooge picked himself up enough to speak.

_"Cute name," _I thought to myself.

"Well master. As you can see, progress is going well, we should be done by your birthday." The man smiled.

"Perfect. By that time, no one will be able to stop me."

"But what about those three kids?" asked the second one as he removed his cloak, revealing a frog-like face. "You weren't able to destroy them so how are we to know they don't already know what you're doing?" The pillar of fire looked at the frog and raised a hand towards him. For the sake of possible younger readers, I'll make as kid-safe as possible. Basically the frog man fell apart, Literally. All the warts burst, and his body started steaming and then burst into flames. All that was left after a few seconds was a heap of ashes.

"Let that be a lesson to you, Face-of-Horror." The demon removed his cloak revealing a face like the sort of thing you'd see in a doctor's office to show what the human body is underneath all the skin. All the muscle and tissue and sinew. Stuff like that. That's what his face was.

"I'd never question you master," replied the demon.

"And you have no need to, but I want you to send the Long-Necks after the children. Let them try to stop me all they want. But I doubt they'll make it in time." The man turned around and looked right at me with those bloody eyes. I swear, my heart almost stopped! "But I've always loved a good challenge boy. Put up the best fight you can." With that I felt myself being propelled from the mountain and back into my body.

* * *

I snapped out of bed and felt myself over. Had that really happened? What Long-Necks was that man sending anyway? Then a thought struck me like a slap to the face. Where were Téa and Mokuba? I ran to my closet and looked around inside.

All I saw were Egyptian linen robes, and by robes I mean they looked like dang dresses! Seriously! I grabbed one at random, since it was the only thing in there and my regular clothes were missing, yanked it on and ran into the hall.

Both Téa and Mokuba's rooms held no sign they'd been there except for the fact that there was a messy bed in each.

I ran down the stairs into the living room and almost rammed into the couch. That's when I noticed Khufu was eating what looked like some sort of meat but had pink feathers around his mouth and a few sticking to his bloody fangs.

"Khufu, where's Téa and Mokuba?" I asked.

"ARG!" Khufu barked, pointing at a balcony just past the fireplace. As I walked by, I noticed Khufu was watching ESPN on an enormous flat screen. I just waved it off, but the meat thing was going to bug me. As I walked out, I know I should've  
felt cold but instead I felt like I'd stepped onto a beach on a cool summer day. Téa and Mokuba were sitting at a long table with Amos eating breakfast and dressed in similar clothes to mine.

I walked over when the pool on the opposite end of the balcony gave a surge. I could've sworn I saw something pink looking at me.

"That's Philipp of Macedonia!" Téa called. "He likes bacon!"

"What?" To prove her point, Téa grabbed a piece of bacon from her plate, walked over and tossed the bacon into the air. Almost instantly a huge white crocodile with pink eyes lunged out of the water and grabbed the bacon right out of the air. And just like that he was gone. Téa took her seat and continued eating as though this were perfectly normal. Feeding bacon to an albino crocodile? What stinking part of that comes close to sounding normal!

I grabbed a little bit of scrambled eggs and toast before sitting down next to my siblings.

"Morning Seto!" Mokuba said. How does that kid get all his energy so early in the morning?

"Merry Christmas," Téa said. Let me tell you, when she said that, to me, for the first time in almost ten years, felt like a slap to the face followed by a bucket of cold water.

"Merry Christmas," I replied. "So, just wanted to tell you Amos, you might be short an exotic bird," I said. Amos just smiled.

"Khufu has a sort of idea that only things ending in –_O _have any good taste. He'll eat anything with –_O _at the end. Flamingos, Doritos, that sort of thing."

"Oh," I said, "That makes perfect sense," I replied before trying to eat, but no matter what I did, I couldn't make the food look more appetizing. My mind was screaming for me to tell my family what had happened in my dream but another part of me was telling me it had been just that: a dream. Nothing more. I had no need to worry about it.

_"Is that so, boy?" _asked someone in my head. Jeez! I'm going nuts! Téa put a hand on my arm, catching my attention.

"Are you alright Seto?" she asked. Mokuba looked at me with the same worried expression and Amos just looked me over like he was expecting me to hand over a report card or something.

What else could I do? I told them everything about my dream down to the final detail. Afterward, Mokuba pushed away his plate muttering under his breath. Téa just stared at her unfinished breakfast.

"But it was just a dream guys. No reason to get so nervous," I said. Amos shook his head.

"I'm afraid that's where you're wrong my boy," he said, "Tell me something, did you sleep with that headrest last night?"

"No."

"Why?" asked Mokuba.

"Why would I bother? It's more like it's for keeping one from sleeping instead of helping. What about you two?"

"We slept with ours. If they were put there, they were there for a reason," Téa said. I really hate it when she's got a good point.

"She's right Seto," Amos said. "That headrest is there to keep your Baa from leaving your body and going through the Duat. You're very lucky to be alive. You might as well have been there physically."

"You mean, when that fiery man looked at me, he really could've killed me?"

"What's a Baa?" Mokuba asked.

"It's Egyptian for soul," Amos said. "And if one were to lose their Baa, their body is nothing more than an empty shell." I was suddenly struck with the idea of what Phillip of Macedonia would do to Amos if I threw him into the pool. Whoa. Where'd that come from? Freaky how things just happen.

"So, Seto going through the Duat is a bad thing," Téa simplified. Amos nodded.

"What's the Duat?" Mokuba asked. I have to admit, it slightly infuriates me that I've denied the existence of magic most of my life and now I'm supposed to just accept is exists?

"The Duat is like a river that runs parallel to our dimension. It's where the gods and demons roam. Every once in a while they'll pop up and the House of Life will just beat them back in."

"So why bother if they'll just come back?" Mokuba asked. I swear, the kid has a never-ending stream for this stuff.

"There are ways to banish them so deep into the Duat, they might never come back. But those are too gruesome to teach you kids." My fist clenched.

"Kids?" I questioned. Some people. "And what do you mean by teach us?"

"Well. I guess I'll have to start at the beginning. Both sides of your family come from a long line of powerful Pharaohs. And you three are the most powerful magicians born to this world. That's why you were separated after your mother's death. Five of the lawyers that were involved were from the House of Life." Téa looked about ready to fall right out of her chair.

"WHAT?" Dang that girl had lungs. "You mean some stinking, magicians thought that my brothers and I ought to be separate because of our lineage? That's just… Just…" She didn't continue. Instead she bit down on her lip that was starting to quiver. I knew what was running through her head. It was because of those magicians that we were more like total strangers instead of a family. It was the reason that we all hadn't been raised under the same roof, and the reason why we barely knew each other.

"But Téa, remember you birthday party?"

"What about my birthday has anything to do with my family being separated?"

"The birthday cake incident." With that, Téa sat down and looked ultimately defeated. I don't think I've ever seen her look like that before.

"But now, with Set on the loose we'll have to train you to know the ancient ways."

"What ancient ways?" Mokuba asked. Amos picked up his plate and threw it onto the ground, making it shatter into a thousand pieces with a loud crash.

"These ancient ways," Amos said as he raised his hand to the shattered plate, "_Hi-neh," _he said. A set of glowing, blue hieroglyphics appeared in his palm. I think they were a water jug, a hawk and a long board with a dark spot in the middle on the side. Anyway, the plate began to collect in his hand almost instantly. Even the dust sealed itself back into place. "That was mend or repair. When I threw it down magicians would call that "_Ha-di." _

"Ha-" Faster than I could process, Amos stood up and clamped a hand over Mokuba's mouth.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Mokuba nodded and Amos removed his hand. "Now, I'll need to find Set-"

"Another thing," Téa interrupted, "Who's this Set guy? Why did he trap Odion and what does he want with us?" She fingered her pendant.

"Set is the Egyptian god of Chaos. In Egyptian Myth he killed his brother, Osiris, in order to take the throne. Isis, Osiris' wife, gave birth to a son named Horus, who later battled Set and banished him to the desert. But at the cost of one of his eyes. He was made a new eye out of moonlight, therefore making his symbol the Eye of Horus," I said fingering my own pendant. Amos nodded.

"Yes. And if what Seto saw was correct we'll only have about four days to stop Set."

"Why?" Mokuba asked.

"The Demon Days will have begun by tomorrow."

"What're the Demon Days?" Téa said.

"The Demon Days in Egyptian Myth were the five days that the sky goddess, Nut, had made. Ra had forbidden her and her husband, Geb the Earth God, to have children but they did anyway so Ra told her she couldn't deliver her children on any of the 360 days of the calendar. Nut made five new days at the end of the year by gambling with the God of the moon, Khonsu, and gaining moonlight. She gave birth to five children, one on each day. First was Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis and then Nephthys. To the Egyptians it's a time to avoid doing anything dangerous. On each god's birthday they're most powerful."

"Wait a minute Seto," Mokuba piped up, "You said before that Horus was Isis and Osiris' kid. Which story's true."

"Both are Mokuba. In their first life they were all siblings and Isis created a snake that poisoned Ra and in order to cure him, Isis took his secret name. After that, Ra retreated to the skies and Osiris became King. Set overthrew his brother and then Horus and he battled for the throne. In another life Isis and Osiris were married and Nephthys and Set were married. When Set overthrew Osiris again Nephthys tried to stop him but failed. Nephthys helped Isis collect Osiris' limbs after his destruction and he was reborn as the King of Death while his son took the throne."

"So how many lives do these guys have?" Mokuba asked.

"Well, many ancient Egyptians thought that the Pharaoh was an incarnation of Horus."

"So these guys had a bajillion lives," Téa said.

"Basically. Now Amos," I said looking at the man, "What do you plan to do?"

I'll just make sure Seto wasn't seeing the future and then I'll alert the House. When I get back we'll begin your training. The house is your own but please stay out of the library." Téa nodded.

"But what if Seto didn't see the future? What if it's really there and you get captured?" Amos placed a hand on my sister's head.

"One battle at a time, dear Téa." With that he left. Mokuba stood up and grinned at Téa and she nodded. The both of them got up and walked back inside.

"Where do you two think you're going?" I asked, walking after them.

"To the library," Mokuba said. Almost instantly Khufu appeared in front of us barking up a storm, baring his fangs, still blood-colored and with pink feathers sticking to them. It sounds silly and funny, but trust me, IT IS NOT IN THE LEAST!

Téa reached into her pocket and pulled out a mango.

"Look Khufu, a mango. Ends in –_O. _Yummy yummy yummy in Khufu's tummy-wummie." I can't believe she'd actually talk to a baboon in baby talk but it got Khufu to stop barking and stare at the fruit in her hand. "Why don't you take the yummy mango, sit on the couch and forget we were ever here?" Khufu snatched the mango from her hand and ran back to the couch, completely ignoring us.

"And why are we going to the library?" I asked. "I mean Amos said-"

"Really? You'll let Amos tell you what to do? Seto. When people tell you not to look at something, there's a good chance it's worth looking at," Téa said with a smirk. I ran my hand through my hair. One heck of a family I had.

* * *

**A/N: I think I did a good job with this. Remember, more reviews = happier Pheonix = more chapters sooner! And I'm so sorry about the mix-up with the stories and chapters. I could've sworn I saved this!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Pheonix: I loved the reviews I got about the last chappie! I was so excited to write this but I had to make sure I got the details right.**

**Cerberus: Why not just let them read the real story? It would make a lot more sense for them.**

**Pheonix: Because I'm doing this! And I like doing this! Anyway, please review and onto the story!**

**_Téa_**

Honestly, my brother is an idiot, sometimes it's embarrassing to say we're related. If someone tells you not to check out something, it's likely that it's worth checking out.

"Téa, are you completely-"

"Dearest brother," I said in a sweet tone, "Did your Baa leave your body again while Amos was talking or were you just not listening? Apparently, Red Lord: bad, Red Lords' birthday: very soon, very bad, House of Life: a bunch of old magicians that think it's best to separate families in order to keep magic at a minimum in the world and hate Dad for doing something back almost before I can remember." I took a breath (Yes Seto, even I have to breathe.) "Am I missing anything? Oh yes. I've got an uncle that just left to check if the Red Lord is really doing what you said he's doing in your dream, leaving me with a baboon who likes to eat things ending in-O, a cat that Dad left me and my two brothers who are supposedly descended from an ancient bloodline, blah, blah, blah, et cetera, etcetera but the oldest is too afraid to check out a library." Seto gave me one of his famous death glares but I'd learned to ignore them years ago. "Are you coming or not?"

"How do you plan to get inside?" he asked as he pointed to the large doors behind me. The wood was almost covered in locks and chains. Ice prickles started in the back of my neck as if someone- or something- was telling me what to do.

"What was that spell Amos used at the table?"

"_Hi-nehm?" _Mokuba suggested.

"No, not that one. That one's for join. I mean the other one. Oh yea," I said as I raised my right hand. My fingers sort of worked on their own accord. They made a sort of finger-gun with my middle, index and thumb but the thumb was parallel to the floor. "_Ha-di!" _I shouted. Gold hieroglyphs burned in the air for a second before the entire thing blew up. Pieces of door and lock flew everywhere. When the dust cleared I noticed Seto's hands were covering Mokuba's head and face from the explosion. Muffin was wrapping herself around my ankles as if she was highly proud of me.

"Are you crazy?!" Seto demanded. I smiled. "Now Amos is going to know we went in."

"That's why we have mending spells, dearest brother. We'll just zap it-"

"No more zapping!" Mokuba shouted. "Please."

"I wonder if you tried that on a person-"

"You are crazy!" Seto said as he placed himself in between Mokuba and me.

"Just kidding," I said. "Now, let's check out this library." The truth was, I couldn't've _ha-di-_edanyone after that. As soon as I stepped forward my knees buckled. The next thing I was aware of was Seto holding me up.

"Are you alright?" he asked. I nodded.

"Just tired-" My stomach let out the growl of a starving wolf rather than a young lady, "And famished."

"You just ate a huge breakfast!" Mokuba said.

"True little brother, but I feel as if I haven't eaten or slept for weeks. Anyway, we should check out that library," I said as I pushed myself up. Seto was mainly supporting me the entire way up.

"What I don't get is, those hieroglyphs you created were gold while both Amos and Odion's were blue," he said.

"Maybe they're different for each person. Maybe you'll have hot pink." Seto gave me another glare and let go of me.

"Let's just get this over with," he muttered as he walked in.

* * *

The inside of the library was so amazing, I almost forgot my dizziness. It was bigger than I'd imagined, a round room sunk deep into solid rock, like a giant well. This made no snse but then again, what about this place actually did?

From the platform where we stood, a staircase descended three stories to the bottom floor. The walls, floor, and domed ceiling were all decorated with multicolored pictures of people, gods and monsters. I'd seen such illustrations in the books on Egypt Dad had published. Okay, fine! Every now and then, I'd go over to the Egyptology part of the library to check out my father's books just to feel some sort of connection to him. But the pictures in those books were old, chipped and faded while these looked brand-new.

"It's beautiful," I whispered.

A starry blue sky glittered on the ceiling, but it wasn't a solid blue. Actually, it was a swirling sort of form. After focusing on it for a second I realized it looked like a woman made out of the cosmos laying on her side. Below, the floor was done in a similar way but with a man. Deserts, forests, hills and cities covered the man's green and brown body and a river snaked across his chest.

The library had no books or bookshelves. Instead the walls were honey-combed with circular holes filled with those plastic tubes that you'd see at a bank, each containing a scroll.

At each of the four compass points was a ceramic statue. They were about half the size of humans dressed in kilts and sandals, with glossy black wedge-shaped hairstyles and black eyeliner around their eyes. (Seto says the eyeliner stuff is called kohl, as if that matters.) One of the statues held a stylus and scroll, another held a box, another held a short hooked staff, and the final had nothing.

Seto started down the stairs but I grabbed his arm. He gave me one of those "You're annoying me so make it fast" looks.

"What about traps?" He gave me another look I couldn't quite identify before it was gone.

"Traps?"

"Didn't ancient Egyptians have traps in their tombs?" Seto gave me one of his "Man you're stupid" looks.

"First off, this isn't a tomb. Second off, they had more along the lines of curses. Like the burning curse, the donkey curse-"

"Okay. That sounds much better," I said trying to make the sarcasm heavy. If Seto noticed it, he chose to ignore it. He started down the stairs again with Mokuba and me behind him. If someone was to get a burning skin curse or a magical donkey curse, it was better Seto than Mokuba or me.

Seto gave the room a look around.

"Looks like an older library but a library nonetheless," he said. I almost scoffed. He always tried to make it sound like he knew much more than I did. Mokuba tugged on Seto's sleeve. "What is it?" he asked. Mokuba pointed at the table in the middle of the room. On the edge was a ratty old brown leather bag with a silver buckle and the strap hanging by a few threads.

"Isn't that-" Seto moved past Mokuba and walked up to the bag with a sad look in his normally cold eyes.

"What is it?" I asked. Seto took a look at the clasp and nodded to himself.

"It's Dad's old workbag Téa," he said. Mokuba and I walked over. That ratty old thing belonged to my father? In my opinion, it looked like something Dad wouldn't allow within fifty feet of his property, let alone possess it. But right there, on the top of the buckle were my father's initials: J. S. G.

I looked away and noticed the people on the walls.

"Why did they walk like that?" I asked.

"Who walk like what?" Seto asked. I pointed at the pictures.

"The Egyptians. They walk all sideways. It seems a little silly." Seto gave me another "Man, you're stupid" looks and sighed.

"They didn't walk like that. The Egyptians believed that you had to show all the parts of your body in paintings you'd appear in the afterlife missing an arm or leg," Seto answered as he picked up Dad's workbag and carefully began to open the top.

"Then why don't they show the faces? Weren't they afraid of losing a part of their face?"

"No. They thought that if the painting was looking right at you, it would try to become you."

"Is there anything the Egyptians weren't afraid of?" Seto slapped the bag on the table, clearly frustrated that I was interrupting while he was trying to focus, and a few crumpled pieces of paper flew out.

"They weren't afraid of sisters," he said with a know-it-all smirk on his face. "If they talked too much, those little pests were thrown to the crocodiles during nesting season when the mothers are most temperamental. They also weren't afraid of cats. Those were supposed to be protectors."

"Really?!" I asked, slapping my hands to my mouth. That question earned me my third "Man you're stupid" look of the day.

Seto reached in and started pulling things out. Among all the crinkled old papers of my father was a wooden box decorated the same way as the walls about the perfect size to hold a loaf of French bread. Seto opened the top and pulled out a lump of white something.

"Wax," he reported and reached in again, pulling out a wooden stylus and a palette with small indications in the surface for ink, a couple of glass bottles of the ink itself in gold, red and black.

"An ancient painting set," I said. Seto rolled his eyes. He reached in again and pulled out several lengths of brown twine, an ebony cat statue, an ivory boomerang, a ruler about two feet long and a thick roll of paper. No, not paper. Papyrus. I remembered reading one of dad's books about how Egyptians made it from a plant in their riverbanks. It was so thick and scratchy. I wondered if the ancient Egyptians had to use toilet papyrus. If so, no wonder they walked sideways.

Seto pulled out a tiny wax man that was crudely made and his legs were cut off at the knees.

"Ew," I said. Seto made a hum in agreement and set down the figure. Muffin jumped up to sniff it as if it actually was interesting. Seto finished by pulling a gold envelope from Dad's bag. He opened and scanned the sheet of paper within. "What is it?"

"It's dated about a week after Mom died," Seto said. "It says that he and Mom broke the sacred law of releasing gods and that Mom's death is on his hands. He is to hand over his wand and staff at once, give his two sons: Seto John and Mokuba Abram to the House of Life and leave his daughter with her maternal grandparents and receive the death sentence for his actions."

"What the heck?" I said. Seto placed his hand down on the little wax man and shrugged.

"Dad told me that Mom died protecting him from an on-coming car!" Mokuba said.

"It's not like we can just say 'Tell us what you know' around here though. We'd more than likely get no answer from the statues, cat or baboon," Seto said.

"I answer the call!" Seto jumped back, sending the little figure flying across the table and the poor thing landed on his already lumpy head. "OW!" Mokuba looked at the thing as if he were afraid it would eat him. Muffin walked up to him and pawed at him. He started screaming at her in another language, Ancient Egyptian I suppose, and I doubt any of the words were very nice. My hands slapped over Mokuba's ears. No way was my baby brother learning words like that until he was fifteen. When Muffin didn't leave him alone he screamed: "Leave me alone! I'm not a mouse!" Muffin sat with an air of dignity and started giving herself a cat bath. Seto walked up to the little waxy man.

"What are you?" he asked prodding him with his finger. The little man made a slapping motion with his hand but Seto merely placed his hand down. I doubt it really hurt.

"I'm a _shabti! _What else!" The figure rubbed his head although he still looked like a living lump. "Master calls me Doughboy, though I find the name insulting. You can call me Supreme-Force-Who-Crushes-His-Enemies!"

"Alright Doughboy," Seto said, rather annoyed. Mokuba and I were almost doubled over in laughter. He scowled at Seto, although I'm not really sure if he did or if that was just how his face was made.

"You weren't supposed to trigger me! Only my master can!"

"Master? You mean Dad- Er, John Gardner?" Seto said.

"That's him. Are we done yet? Have I fulfilled my service?" I shot Mokuba a questioning look but I think he and I were starting to get it.

"Were you triggered by Seto giving you a direct order: Tell us what you know?" Doughboy scowled.

"Of course. Only master is supposed to be able to do that though. I don't know how you did it, but he'll blast you to bits when he find out you did." Seto slammed his hand on the table, causing Doughboy to jump slightly.

"Listen. Your master, John Gardner, is our dad. He's been dead for almost seven years."

"Master is dead?" I thought Doughboy might start crying but instead his face looked as if it would split down the middle. "FREEDOM! See you, suckers!" He made a lunge for the end of the table but seemed to forget he had no feet but that didn't seem to bother him in the least. Instead he just crawled to the table's edge and flopped to the floor with a thud and crawled for the stairs. "Freedom!" he called again. He barely got a centimeter of his freedom when Seto snatched him off the ground and threw him, quite roughly, into the box. He tried to jump but could barely reach the rim, which seemed like that was what it was designed for. "Trapped!" Seto Loomed over the box with an angry scowl over his face.

"Listen her you miserable little lump. I'm the master now and you will answer our questions. Got it?"

"How come you get to be in charge?' I asked.

"Because I'm the oldest," he said, which ended to conversation.

"And how do you know he'll answer our questions?" I asked.

"Because in ancient Egypt, _shabti _meant answerer. They were placed in tombs in order for the dead to, in a sense, relax during the afterlife and order the _shabti _around for eternity."

"That," Doughboy started, "Is typical of humans. And we _shabti _have a better purpose in this life to answer questions. Without us, magicians would be total incompetents." Seto glared at the man, making him cower slightly.

"For the first question, Why did Dad cut off your legs but leave you with a mouth?" Seto asked. Doughboy opened his mouth, probably to say something smart, then slapped his waxy hands over his face.

"Oh, very funny. Threaten the little guy. Big bully!" Seto looked as though he were ready to strangle Doughboy. He had a very low tolerance for bullies which constantly ended in fights for him when he was a kid. "Magicians do that. They maim statues because they're afraid that we'll come after them and kill them if they make us perfectly."

"Would you have killed Dad?" I asked. Doughboy shrugged.

"Probably. Have I fulfilled my service?"

"No. Now, what happened to our father?" Seto said.

"Well, if you must know. Your parents went to Cleopatra's Needle after dropping you off with your grandparents. There, they tried to release gods and succeeded in releasing six in total. Your mother literally burned up closing the Duat's opening and your father became the host of Osiris. At least, a part of him. After a few weeks, five were placed in the Rosetta Stone while one existed in a minor form." I took a step back. My mother literally burned up? Using magic could do that to you? I looked at my hands in fear. I'd gotten hungry and tired from one little spell. What had my mother done to be burned up?

"And after that?" Seto said.

"I don't know anymore. I only have to tell you what I know. Educated guesses are another thing. I declare my duty fulfilled!" With that, he became a wax statue again.

"Wait!" I grabbed him and gave him a shake. "Tell us your educated guesses!" But Doughboy remained a useless lump of ugly wax. I threw him back in the box. "What the heck?"

"Maybe he's got a timer or maybe you broke him," Seto said. I could tell by his voice he was trying to be funny but he was still in shock about hearing the truth about our mother's death.

"Make a helpful suggestion!" I shouted. Mokuba looked at the other statues.

"Maybe the other _shabti_?" he said. I shrugged.

"Worth a shot." Seto stayed put while Mokuba and I went around, asking nicely, holding them and demanding answers which the lifting part wasn't easy, a threatening them but nothing happened. At that point I wanted to _ha-di _them into oblivion but I was still tired and hungry.

"Or maybe we could check the cubbyholes," Seto said as he started looking at a few of the tubes. The titles were written in hieroglyphs and English (Thankfully). "_The Book of the Heavenly Cow," _Seto read. "What do you have? _The Heavenly Badger_?"

"No. _The Book of Slaying Apophis," _I read. Muffin's body puffed up like one of her hairballs and she darted out of the room. "What's with her?"

"Apophis was the embodiment of pure chaos. In ancient Egypt his domain was the night when the sun god, Ra, would descend into the Duat from the havens on his nightly rebirth cycle."

"But you can't die and be reborn the next morning," I said.

"They were gods Téa. They could do that!" Seto said annoyed as he pulled out another scroll. This one looked rather old. Seto placed it on the table and rolled it out. "Come check this out," he said. Mokuba and I walked over. Seto pointed at the top and looked at me. "Can you read that?" he said.

"Yea, it says _Blood of the Great House._ Great House? What the heck?"

"What's it sound like in Egyptian?"

"Per-roh. Oh it must mean Pharaoh. But what is Blood of the Pharaoh?"

"It's sort of like us calling the President 'The White House" and the Blood of the Pharaohs is pretty much the bloodline of the Pharaohs. Like a family tree. Can you read any of this?" Mokuba asked. I shook my head.

"That's because they're names. They're protected by cartouches." I slapped my hands over Mokuba's ears again.

"Excuse me?" Seto prided himself on knowing cuss words and cartouche sounded like one.

"The ancient Egyptians were afraid that a magician could curse you with your name so they made cartouches which are supposed to be magical rope." I looked again and it did look like the names were inside of slightly rectangular ropes. Seto looked at the bottom. "No way," he whispered.

"What?" I looked at the bottom where he was pointing at three cartouches that brought the whole thing to an end.

"Those are our names," he said. I looked. In the first cartouche was a folded cloth and a semi-circle over a sort of one-level step-stool with a platform on the bottom, a hollow eye shape, a hand, a sort of squiggly line and another empty eye. The second had a semi-circle with the last line the exact same as the first, and the third had an owl, a reed basket, and a leg.

"Missing a few letters aren't they?"

"Well, the Egyptians didn't put vowels into names back then. I asked Dad to show me what our names looked like in hieroglyphs and that's what he showed me. What I don't get is why our names are on here." Suddenly I felt as if I'd been slapped in the face. Amos had said that our family had been ancient right? Seto met my eyes. He was having the same thought.

"There's no way," I said.

"No one keeps family records that far back." Mokuba looked at the scroll then at us.

"I think this is real," he said. "Seto, according to that story you told us, when do the Demon Days start?"

"Th- The 27th. Which is tomorrow. And that means Set's birthday is the 29th. Which gives us a total of four days to stop him!" I gulped. No pressure or anything right? Suddenly, there was a loud crash, as if something had broken into the Great Room. Khufu began barking in alarm. The boys and I locked eyes then we ran for the stairs.

* * *

**Pheonix: I think I'll end it there for tonight. I'm tired now and still need to take out my contacts.**

**Cerberus: Zzzzzz.**

**Pheonix: So professional. Now, once I finish this series, I'll start on Percy Jackson with the perfect pairing. I'll tell you when I'm done with the Serpent's Shadow. Please Review!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Pheonix: Here we are with a new chappie! Now that this one's done, we're one step closer to finishing this thing. I'm excited. Please review!**

**Kisara: In the next few chapters we meet me! Please review!**

* * *

**_Téa_**

Our baboon was going completely sky goddess – that is to say, nuts. The silly monkey was swinging from column to column, knocking over vases and statues then checking out the terrace windows, stared outside for a few seconds then proceeded to go totally berserk again. For a minute I thought he'd caught rabies from eating flamingos but Muffin was also at the window, crouched down low and twitching her tail lightly the way she did when she was stalking a bird.

"Maybe it's a passing flamingo," Mokuba suggested. I could barely hear him over the screaming baboon that was now clinging to Seto around the shoulders. Then again, Seto's name ended in an –_O _so I couldn't exactly blame him.

Somehow, Seto managed to pry Khufu off him and we checked out the windows. At first, everything looked peaceful then the water exploded out of the pool and my heart leapt up to my throat as if it was trying to leap out of my body entirely. Two enormous monster, definitely not flamingos, were fighting with Phillip.

I couldn't see what they were, only that there were two of them and only one Phillip. They disappeared under the water again and Khufu ran screaming through the Great Room, bonking himself on the head with an empty Cheerios box.

"Not exactly helpful Khufu," Seto said. "But Téa, Mokuba. Did you two see those things?" Mokuba and I nodded. I swallowed loudly, trying to keep down my fear. How did Seto always make it look like he was made of stone and make it look so easy? I will never know.

"What were those things Seto?" Mokuba asked. I hadn't realized that he'd latched onto my robes. Suddenly, the water exploded again and one of the monsters crashed into the glass doors. I covered a scream and Seto's hand covered it more. The body was like that of a leopard – lean and sinewy with golden spotted fur – but the neck was totally wrong. It was green and scaly and at least as long as the rest of the body. It had a cat's head but it wasn't that of a normal cat. When it turned it's glowing red eyes towards us, it howled showing a forked tongue and fangs dripping with venom.

"Stop whining Téa," Seto reprimanded lightly. I realized my knees were trembling and I was making a very undignified whimpering sound.

The cat beast smashed it's head against the door but a row of blue hieroglyphs burned around the door. It shook its head once then rejoined its friend in beating up Phillip, who twisted, turned, and bit but didn't seem to be able to hurt his attackers.

"Longnecks. I've seen those things before. Come on!" He made a break for the library again.

"But what about Phillip? He'll be killed!" Seto snapped around, glaring at me for questioning his motives.

"Look, if we go outside Set will have those things kill us. You're the one who believes in magic around here. Why don't you express some of that belief and just let the magic crocodile fight by himself! I'm sure he'll be fine!" I looked back and gasped loudly. Phillip had jumped out of the water until only the tip of his tail was in the water. He looked at me with his pink eye and I could've sworn he was smiling at me as if to reassure me everything would be alright. He let himself fall hard on the terrace. Cracks spider-webbed out from the impact and the pool and everything behind it, including Phillip and the longnecks went over the side into the void.

"PHILLIP!" I screamed. I reached for the door handle but Muffin scratched my shin. "Ouch!" I looked at Seto, he'd only looked down for a second and was now looking at me. "He sacrificed himself to kill the monsters. He…"

"Téa, what if he didn't?" Seto said.

"Don't say that!" I shouted on the verge of tears.

"Téa, I've seen those things before. Let me show you." He turned on his heel and vanished into the library. Mokuba and I looked at each other, shrugged and followed him.

When we caught up with him he was facing one of the _shabti _and snapping his fingers the way he does when he's trying to remember something.

"What's going on Seto?" Mokuba asked. "Why are you standing in front of one of the _shabti_?"

"Mokuba, remember when Dad told us about these things? They're servants. They retrieve things. My guess is that all of them can do something here, perhaps even help us out of this little mess."

"How are we going to get away from the Longnecks? We should be helping Phillip!" I said.

"Téa, remember that one time Dad told us about the first Pharaoh?" I nodded. "Well, after we went home, Dad told me that there was an artifact depicting the Pharaoh. I'm just trying to remember-"

"The Narmer Plate?" Mokuba asked. Seto shook his head but smiled.

"Close and thank you Mokuba. It's called the Narmer Palette. We need to see the Narmer Palette." Across the room, the _shabti_ with a crook jumped off his pedestal and disappeared in a cloud of dust. A heartbeat later, he reappeared on the table with a wedge of stone about the size of a shield at his feet. Seto looked about ready to have a stroke. "I meant a picture or drawing or something! Gah! I think this thing took the real artifact from the Cairo Museum!" I walked over and took a look. On the front was a man wearing a weird bowling pin on his head, holding a spoon about to bash in the face of the guy kneeling before him who was being held by the hair.

"Is that Narmer? The guy holding the spoon? And he's bashing in the other dude's face because he stole his breakfast cereal?" I guessed. Seto's face palmed himself and sighed.

"Six billion people in the world and I get you for a sister," he muttered. "Narmer was the first Pharaoh to unite Upper and Lower Egypt. The crown he's wearing-"

"The bowling pin?" I asked. A look of pure annoyance crossed Seto's features.

"Yes Téa, the bowling pin." He sounded annoyed, which tended to happen a lot with me and adults. "Anyway, he untied both parts of Egypt and his crown is the crowns of both countries combined. He's conquering his enemies in this picture."

"That looks like Dad," I said. Seto growled.

"Téa! Be serious!"

"I _am _being serious! Look at his build." Mokuba looked at the Palette.

"Yea. He does kinda look like you at least in the build," he said.

"But I don't see any monsters like ones that Phillip sacrificed himself to get rid of," I pointed out. Seto shook his head.

"It must be on the back. But I don't want to-" I flipped it over, causing Mokuba to shout my name.

"What?" I said.

"You do realize this thing's over 5000 years old right?!" Mokuba said. "You could've just as easily broken it!"

"That's what mending spells are for Mokuba." Seto shook his head and looked at the Narmer Palette. There were the creatures we'd just seen with two men trying to get lassos around their necks.

"Serpopards," Seto said. "Serpent lizards."

"Interesting, but what exactly are they?" I asked.

" No one knows exactly. Dad thought they were creatures of chaos – very bad news. And these things have been around forever."

"Great. Now why are 5000 year old monsters attacking our house?"

"Remember what I said? That fiery man, Set, said he'd send the longnecks first."

"Well then, it's a good thing they're at the bottom of the East River." At the moment, Khufu came in screaming and slapping his head. "I shouldn't have said that."

"You think?!" Mokuba said. Seto told the _shabti_ to return the Palette and it obeyed and we followed the baboon up the stairs.

* * *

The serpopards were back, their fur wet and slimy from their dip in the river, and they were not happy. The prowled at the door, their snake head whipped around as they sniffed the hieroglyph-surrounded glass. They spit poison that steamed and bubbled against the protected surface. Seto hid Mokuba behind him.

"Agh, agh!" Khufu picked up Muffin, who was sitting on the sofa, and offered me the cat.

"I don't think she'll be able to help," I said.

"Agh!" Khufu insisted. I was confused. Neither cat nor Muffin ended in –_O _so I doubt Khufu was trying to offer me a snack. I took the cat in my arms just to shut him up.

"Mrow?" Muffin looked up at me. I stroked her head.

"It'll be alright," I said trying not to sound as scared as I was. "The house is protected by magic right?"

"Doubtful," Seto said. I wished he would shut up.

"And why do you say that?" I asked snappishly. You'd think it would take a lot to get me like that but my brother can get to me with a single word.

"Because they've found something." The serpopards had converged at the door and sniffing intently at the handle.

"Isn't it locked?" I asked, clutching my cat tighter. Mokuba clutched my robes in his hands. Both monsters smashed their ugly faces into the glass. The doors shuddered. Blue hieroglyphs glowed along the doorframe but their light was faint.

"I don't like this," Mokuba said. I prayed that the monsters would give up or that Phillip of Macedonia would climb back up onto the terrace (do crocodiles climb?) and renew the fight. Instead the monsters smashed their heads against the glass again. This time, a web of cracks appeared. The blue hieroglyphs flickered and died.

"AGH!" Khufu screamed. He waved his hand vaguely at the cat.

"Maybe if I try a _ha-di _spell," I suggested. Seto glared at me like I'd just threatened to pull the pin out of a grenade.

"You almost fainted after you blew up the doors. I don't want you passing out or worse." Once more, Seto surprised me by grabbing a sword from one of Amos' wall displays. The blade was crescent-shaped and looked horribly impractical. What had that boy been thinking? He'd been trained by his step-father how to fence sure but use a sword like this? Never!

"You can't be serious," I said.

"Unless – Unless you've got a better idea," Seto said. He sounded like he was trying to be brave for Mokuba, the same way he did on our first visitation day without Dad. "It's you, me, and the baboon against those things."

"Hey!" Mokuba protested.

"You are to stay behind us Mokuba!" Seto's tone made it clear that Mokuba wasn't going to even touch anything relating to a sword in this fight. I'm sure Seto was just trying to be protective of Mokuba and me but when I looked closely at him, he was sweating nervously. If anyone was going to pass out, I was afraid it was going to be him. And I didn't like the idea of him doing that while holding a sword.

The serpopards struck a third time and the doors shattered. We backed up to the foot of the statue of Thoth as the creatures stalked into the room. Khufu threw his basketball to the first serpopard but it bounced harmlessly off the creature's head. Then he launched himself at the creature.

"Khufu! Don't!" Seto shouted. But the baboon sank his fangs into the monster's neck. The serpopard lashed around, trying to bite him. Khufu leapt off but the monster was too quick. It used its head as a bat and smacked poor Khufu in midair, sending him straight through the shattered door, over the broken terrace and into the void.

I wanted to cry but there wasn't time. The serpopards came towards us. We couldn't outrun them. Seto raised his sword. I pointed my hand at the first monster and tried to speak the _ha-di _spell but my voice was stuck in my throat.

"Mrow!" Muffin insisted. Why was the cat still nestled in my arms and not running for the nearest couch or bed to hide under? Then I remembered what Seto had said: (Yes Seto, I was listening now shut up and stop smirking like you're king of the world!) Cats were protectors. Was that what Khufu had been trying to remind me of? It seemed impossible but I picked the cat up under her front legs and held her up so we were eye-to-eye.

"M-Muffin. I order you to protect us!" With that, I tossed her to the floor. For just a moment, it seemed like the charm on her collar gleamed. Then the cat arched her back leisurely, sat down and began licking a front paw. Seto's sword point dropped into the floor and he sighed.

"Really Téa? Really?" Well, what had I been expecting – heroics?

The two red-eyed monsters bared their fangs and Seto raised the tip of his sword again. They raised their heads to strike - and a huge explosion of dry air blasted through the room. It was powerful enough to blast my brothers and myself off our feet. The serpopards stumbled back.

I staggered to my feet and realized that the center of the explosion had been my cat! But she was no longer there. In her place was a woman – small and lithe like a gymnast. Her jet-black hair was tied in a ponytail. She wore a skintight leopard-skin jumpsuit and Muffin's pendant around her neck.

She turned and grinned at me, and her eyes were still Muffin's – yellow with black feline pupils.

"About time," she chided.

The serpopards got over their shock and charged the cat woman. Their heads struck with lightning speed. They should've ripped her in two but the cat lady leaped straight up, flipping three times and landed above them, perched on the mantle.

She flexed her wrists, and two enormous knives shot from her sleeves into her hands. "A-a-ah. Fun!"

The monsters charged. She launched herself between them, dancing and dodging with incredible grace, lacing their necks together until they were hopelessly tangled together. The more they struggled, the tighter the knots became. They trampled back and forth, knocking over furniture and roaring in frustration.

"Poor things," the cat woman purred. "Let me help." Her knives flashed and the two monsters' heads thudded to the floor at her feet. Their bodies collapsed and dissolved into enormous piles of sand. "So much for my playthings," the woman said sadly. "From sand they come and to sand they return." She turned towards us and the knives shot back into her sleeves. "Seto, Téa, Mokuba, we should leave. Worse will be coming." Mokuba made a chocking noise behind me. Then I snapped my head around to Seto. Luckily he hadn't been scratched by his sword when the explosion happened.

"Worse? Who – How – What?" Mokuba said.

"All in good time." The woman stretched her arms above her head in great satisfaction. "So good to be in human form again! Now, Téa, can you open a door to the Duat please?" I blinked.

"Um… no. I mean – I don't know how." The woman narrowed her eyes, clearly disappointed.

"Shame. We'll need more power then. Ah, obelisk!'

"But Yugi's the only one who has Obelisk the Tormentor. And he's back at home," I said. The woman laughed.

"No. There's a nearer one in Central Park. I tend to avoid Manhattan but this is an emergency. We'll just pop over and open a portal." She said that like it was as easy as grabbing a soda and opening the can.

"Why do you avoid Manhattan?" Mokuba asked. The woman shook her head like I did whenever I had to eat something really sour.

"Wrong country. Wrong gods."

"What do you mean 'wrong gods?'" Seto asked as he stood up.

"A portal to where?" I asked, standing up. "Who are you and why were you my cat?" The woman smiled.

"For now we just want a portal out of danger. As for my name, it's not Muffin. It's-"

"Bast," Seto said. "Your pendant's the symbol of the Egyptian cat goddess, Bast. I thought it was just decoration but it's you isn't it?"

"Very good Seto," Bast said. "Now come, while we can still make it out of here alive."

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**Pheonix: Well, that's done! And please review!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Pheonix: Here's to my 2nd anniversary!**

**_Seto_**

* * *

So, our cat's a goddess. What else is new? She didn't give us much time to think about it. She told me to go back to the library to get our dad's magic kit and when I got back she was arguing with Téa about Khufu and Phillip.

"We have to look for them!" Téa insisted.

"They'll be fine," Bast assured. "However, we will not be, if we don't leave now." Mokuba raised his hand as I stepped towards the group.

"Uh, excuse me Miss Goddess Lady? Isn't the house protected-"

"Mokuba, sweet, naive, Mokuba," Bast said like she was talking to one of her kittens. "Someone sabotaged the defenses. They were too easily breached."

"What do you mean? Who would-" I started.

"Only a magician of the House could've done it."

"Another magician?" I asked. "But who would want to sabotage Amos' house?"

"Oh Seto, I would've thought those years being raised by Gozaboro would've driven all sense of being naïve out. But magicians are devious creatures. Could be many reasons why one would backstab another but we don't have time to discuss it. Now come on!" Téa grabbed Mokuba just as Bast grabbed my arm and my sister's and lead us out the front door. She'd sheathed her knives, sure, but she had some wicked sharp claws that hurt a little as they dug into my skin. As soon as we stepped outside, the cold wind stung my eyes. We climbed down a set of metal stairs into the industrial yard that surrounded a factory.

Dad's workbag was heavy on my shoulder. The curved sword I'd strapped onto my back felt cold through my linen clothes. I hadn't realized how much I'd been sweating during the serpopard attack and now I felt gross and like my perspiration was turning to ice.

I looked around for more monsters but the yard seemed abandoned. Old construction equipment lay in rusting heaps – a bulldozer, a crane with a wrecking ball, and a couple of cement mixers. Piles of sheet metal and stacks of crates made a maze of obstacles between the house and the street a few hundred yards away.

We were about halfway across the yard when an old gray tomcat stepped into our path. One of his ears was torn. His left eye was swollen shut. Judging by his scars, he'd spent most of his life fighting. Bast crouched and stared at the cat. He looked up at her calmly.

"Thank you," she said. The old tomcat trotted off towards the river.

"What was that about?" Téa asked.

"One of my subjects, offering help. He'll spread the news about our predicament. Soon every cat in New York will be on alert."

"He was so battered," Téa said. "If he was one of your subjects why didn't you heal him?"

"And take away his marks of honor? A cat's battle scars are part of his identity. I couldn't-" Suddenly Bast tensed. She dragged us behind a stack of crates.

"What is it?" I whispered. My hand went for the hilt of my sword. Bast grabbed my arm and shook her head before letting go. Her knives shot into her hands. She peeped over the crates, every muscle in her body was trembling. I tried to see what she was looking at but there was nothing but the wrecking ball crane.

Bast's mouth twitched in excitement. Her eyes were fixed on the huge metal ball. I'd seen kittens do that when they were stalking birds, pieces of yarn or rubber balls… Balls. No. Bast was an ancient goddess. Surely she wouldn't-

"This could be it," she said as she shifted her weight. "Stay very very still."

"No one's out there," Téa said. Mokuba took hold of my arm. He opened his mouth to speak but Bast lunged over the crates. She flew thirty feet through the air, knives flashing, and landed on the wrecking ball with such force that she broke the chain. The cat goddess and the huge metal sphere smashed into the dirt and went rolling across the yard.

"ROWWW!" Bast wailed. The wrecking ball rolled straight over her but she didn't appear hurt. She leapt off and pounced again. Her knives sliced through the metal like wet clay. Within seconds, the metal ball was reduced to a mound of scraps.

Bast sheathed her blades.

"Safe now!" she called.

"You saved us from a metal ball!" Mokuba said.

"You never know," Bast said."It could've been hostile."

I was about to say something when a loud BOOM shook the earth. I looked back at the mansion. Tendrils of blue fire curled from the top windows.

"Come on," Bast said. "Our time is up." I thought she'd whisk us off by magic or at least hail a taxi. Instead, Bast borrowed a silver Lexus convertible. "Oh yes," she said. "I like this one! Come along children!" I faltered. No one had called me a child since I'd taken over Kaiba Corp and the fact that I was actually accepting all of this quite easily was a little out of my ways.

"But this isn't yours," Mokuba said.

"My dear, I'm a cat. Anything I see is mine." She touched the ignition, the keyhole sparked and the engine began to purr. (No Téa, not like a cat. Like an engine. Will you shut up and let me tell the story?) I sighed and headed for the car.

"But," Mokuba started. "You can't just-"

"Mokuba," I said warningly. "We'll work out how to return it later. Right now we need to move." I pointed at the house where blue fire was now curling out of all the windows but that wasn't the scary part. Coming down the stairs were four men carrying a large box like an oversize coffin with long handles sticking out at both ends. The box was covered with a large black shroud and looked big enough for three bodies. The four men wore only kilt skirts and sandals. Their coppery skin glinted in the sun as if they were made of metal.

"Oh, that's bad," Bast said. "In the car please." Mokuba practically leapt into the car. Téa beat us to the shotgun seat which was perfectly fine with me. If this cat was driving, I'd want to stay in the backseat where it was less likely I'd be sent though the windshield or crushed if Bast decided to go after another giant ball or an enormous rope that she wanted to play with or a huge bird she wanted to stalk.

The four metallic guys with the box were racing across the yard, coming straight at us at an unbelievable speed. Before Mokuba or myself could get our seatbelts on, Bast hit the gas.

We tore through the streets of Brooklyn, weaving insanely through traffic, riding over sidewalks and narrowly missing pedestrians.

Bast drove with reflexes that were… well, catlike. Any human trying to drive at that speed would've had a dozen wrecks but she got us safely to the Williamsburg Bridge.

I thought for sure we'd lost our pursuers but when I looked back, the four copper men with the black box were weaving in and out of traffic. They appeared to be jogging at a normal pace but they passed by cars doing fifty. Their bodies blurred like choppy images in an old movie, as if they were out of sync with the regular stream of time.

"What the heck are those things?" Mokuba asked. "_Shabti_?"

"No, carriers." Bast looked in the rearview mirror. "Summoned straight from the Duat. They'll stop at nothing to find their victims, throw them into the sedan-"

"The what?" Téa interrupted.

"The large box," Bast said slightly irritated."It's a kind of carriage. The carriers capture you, beat you senseless, throw you in and carry you to their master. They never lose their prey and they never give up."

"But what do they want us for?" Mokuba asked.

"You don't want to know," Bast replied. "Trust me." I thought of the fiery man last night in Phoenix –how he'd fried one of his own subjects into a grease spot. A chill ran down my spine and I felt pretty sure I did not want to meet that guy face-to-face. Not just yet at least. "They chased your father once." Bast slapped a hand over her mouth like she'd just said something she wasn't supposed to.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"No, you mentioned our dad," Mokuba said. Bast sighed.

"We've learned about Mom and Dad summoning those six gods. But we need to know what happened!" Téa said. Bast sighed again.

"Fine. Your parents were very powerful magicians, saying that their bloodlines had been loved by the gods and in the House of Life for generations. Powerful enough to bring gods out of the Duat, a practice that the House of Life had banned by the Chief Lector of the time during the fall of Egypt, after that foolish queen, Cleopatra, killed herself. That Chief Lector was named Akunumkanon. But I think right now, I should probably keep my mind on the road and not on the past at this moment!" I looked back at the four men following us.

"Bast, if you're a goddess can't you just snap your fingers and disintegrate those guys? Or teleport us away?" Mokuba asked. Bast chuckled.

"Wouldn't that be nice? But my power in this host is limited."

"You mean Muffin?" Téa asked. "But you're not a cat anymore!"

"She's still my host, Téa, my anchor to this side of the Duat – and a very imperfect one. Your call for help allowed me to assume a human shape but that alone takes a great deal of power. Besides, even if I'm in a powerful host, Set's magic is stronger than mine." I snapped around.

"Could you please say something I actually understand?!" I snapped.

"Seto, we don't have time for a full discussion of gods and hosts and the limits of magic! We have to get you to safety."

Bast floored the accelerator and shot up the middle of the bridge. The four carriers with the sedan raced after us, blurring the air as they moved, but no cars swerved to avoid them. No one panicked or even looked at them.

"How can people not see them?!" I asked. "Don't they notice four copper men in skirts running up the bridge with a weird black box?" Bast simply shrugged.

"Cats can hear many sounds you can't. Some animals see things in the ultraviolet spectrum that are invisible to humans. Magic is similar. Did you notice the mansion when you first arrived?"

"Well…no."

"And you were born to magic," Bast said. "Imagine how hard it would be for a regular mortal."

"Born to magic?" I remembered what Bast had said about our family just a few minutes ago. "So if magic runs in the family, how come neither Mokuba nor myself were able to do it sooner?" I asked. _"It could've come in handy in a few places." _Bast smiled in the mirror.

"Your sister understands." Téa's ears turned red.

"No I don't! I still can't believe you're a goddess! All this time, you've been eating crunchy treats and napping on my head!" I let out a small chuckle. I'd seen that once when Téa was five during our very first visitation day when she'd had pneumonia.

"I made a deal with your father," Bast explained. "He let me remain in the world as long as I assumed a minor form, a normal housecat, so I could protect and watch over you. It was the least I could do after…" She stopped herself abruptly. A horrible thought occurred to me. I looked at Mokuba and the look in his eye told me he was thinking the same thing. My stomach fluttered and it had nothing to do with how fast we were going.

"After our mom's death," I finished. Bast stared straight ahead out the windshield. "That's it isn't it? Dad and Mom did some kind of magical ritual at Cleopatra's Needle. Something went wrong. Mom died… and they released you and five other gods that were later sealed away again?"

"That's not important right now-" Bast said.

"Seems pretty darn important to me!" Mokuba said. "I was five when Dad died in that car accident and Mom died before I could remember her! That doesn't seem like something that can just come up and be forgotten like my math test when I get back to school!" His hands slapped over his mouth. I shook my head. Mokuba hated telling me if he had any homework or tests coming up because I made him staple his pants to the chair and study. Quite literally.

"The point, Mokuba, is that I promised to look after Téa and I will." She was hiding something. I was sure of it. But her tone made it quite clear that the subject was closed.

"If the gods are so powerful and helpful," I said. "why does the House of Life forbid magicians from summoning you?" Bast swerved into the fast lane.

"Magicians are paranoid. Your best hope is to stay with me. We'll get as far away as possible from New York. Then we'll get help and challenge Set."

"What help?" Téa asked. Bast raised an eyebrow.

"Why, we'll summon more gods, of course."

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**Pheonix: Love that! Please review!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Phoenix: I love all the reviews I've been getting lately. And I just wanted Alyssa A to know that when Seto, Téa and Mokuba meet up with Kisara again will be when it happens in the real book. Like I said, this is a re-write. **

**And to CrimsonStrawberry, I will be replacing other Red Pyramid characters with some Yu-Gi-Oh characters but I am doing other Rick Riordan stories as well so I can't use all the characters. But Vlad the Inhaler will be a bit of a problem, or maybe not. Nevermind. Anyway, please review!**

**_Seto_**

* * *

(Téa, stop it! Yes, I'm getting to that part now shut up!) Sorry, she keeps trying to distract me by setting fire to my m-never mind. Now, where was I? Oh of course, the four men in skirts chasing us half-way around New York. How could anyone forget that? Anyway.

We barreled across the Williamsburg bridge, into Manhattan and headed north on Clinton Street.

"We're still being stalked," Téa warned.

Sure enough, those carriers were just a block behind us, weaving through traffic and trampling over sidewalk displays of tourist junk. Not that big of a loss if you ask me. (Ow Téa, that's my arm. Glad my face wasn't there.) Sorry she just punched me. Moving on.

"We'll buy time," Bast said and she let out a growl from deep in her throat-a sound so low and powerful it made my teeth buzz. She yanked on the wheel and swerved onto East Huston.

I looked back. Just as the carriers turned the corner, a horde of cats materialized all around them. Some jumped from windows. Some ran from the sidewalks and alleys. Some crawled from the storm drains. All of them converged on the carriers in a wave of fur and claws-climbing up their copper legs, scratching their backs, clinging to their faces, and weighing down the sedan box. The carriers stumbled, dropping the box. They began blindly swatting at the cats. Two cars swerved to avoid the animals and collided, blocking the entire street, and the carriers went down under the mass of angry felines. We turned onto the FDR Drive, and the scene disappeared from view.

"Nice," I admitted. Mostly, I was surprised. According to Bast, normal mortals couldn't see magic but they could obviously see an entire street full of cats and unknowingly save three teens and their cat goddess without even knowing it.

"It won't hold them long," Bast said. "Now – Central Park!"

Bast ditched the Lexus at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"We'll run from here," she said. "It's just behind the museum."

When she said run, she meant it. I had to lift Mokuba onto my back and Téa and I had to sprint to keep up, and Bast wasn't even breaking a sweat. She didn't stop for little things like hot dog stands or parked cars. Anything under ten feet tall she leaped over with ease, leaving us to scramble around the obstacles as best we could.

We ran into the park on the East Drive. As soon as we turned north, the obelisk loomed above us. A little over seventy feet tall, it looked quite a bit like the one in Washington D.C. only a more goldish-sort of color. It was tucked away on a grassy hill, so it actually felt very isolated which is unbelievably hard to achieve in the dead center of New York. There was no one around except a couple of joggers farther down the path. I could hear the traffic behind us on Fifth Avenue, but even that seemed far away.

We stopped at the obelisk's base. Bast sniffed the air as if smelling for trouble. Once I was standing still and Mokuba slid off my back, I realized just how cold I was. The sun was directly overhead, but the wind ripped right through my borrowed linen clothes.

"I wish I'd grabbed something warmer," Mokuba complained as he breathed on his hands and shivered and pushed himself into my body. "A wool coat would be nice."

"No, it wouldn't," Bast said, scanning the horizon. "You're dressed for magic." Téa shivered.

"We have to freeze to be magical? No thanks. I'd much rather go back to my life of being a cheerleader from the sidelines or one to depend on for a good friendship speech. At least there I can wear what I like and not be forced to wear paper-thin pajamas!"

"Magician avoid animal products," Bast said absently. "Fur, leather, wool, any of that. The residual life aura can interfere with spells."

"My boots seem all right," Téa said. I looked down and noticed that somehow, my little sister had managed to keep her combat boots, probably by sleeping in them.

"Leather," Bast said with distaste. "You may have a higher tolerance, so a bit of leather won't bother your magic. I don't know. But linen clothing is always best, or cotton – plant material. At any rate Téa, I think we're clear for the moment. There's a window of auspicious time starting right now, at eleven thirty, but it won't last long. Get started." Téa blinked.

"Me? Why me?! You're the goddess!"

"I'm not good at portals," Bast said. "Cats are protectors. Just control your emotions. Panic or fear will kill a spell. We have to get out of here before Set summons the other gods to his cause." I frowned.

"You mean Set's got other evil gods on speed dial or something?" I asked. Bast glanced nervously toward the trees.

"Evil and good may not be the best way to think of it, Seto. As a magician, you must think about chaos and order. Those are the two forces that control the universe. Set is all about chaos."

"But what about the other gods Odion released?" Mokuba asked. "Aren't they some of the good guys? Isis, Osiris, Horus, Nephthys – where are they?" Bast fixed her eyes on me.

"That's a very good question young kitten." Mokuba opened his mouth to protest but a Siamese cat broke through the bushes and ran up to Bast. They looked at each other for a moment. Then the Siamese dashed away. "The carriers are close," Bast announced. "And something else… something much stronger, closing in from the east. I think the carriers' master has grown impatient." My heart did a flip in my throat.

"Set is coming?" Mokuba asked, clinging to my clothes.

"No," Bast said. "Perhaps a minion. Or an ally. My cats are having trouble describing what they're seeing, and I don't want to find out. Téa, now is the time. Just concentrate on opening a gateway to the Duat. I'll keep off the attackers. Combat magic is my specialty."

"Like what you did back at the mansion?" I asked. Bast showed her pointed teeth.

"No, that was just combat."

The woods rustled, and the carriers emerged. Their sedan's shroud had been shredded by cat claws. The carriers themselves were scratched and dented. One walked with a limp, his leg bent backward at the knee. Another had a car fender wrapped around his neck.

The four metal men carefully set down their sedan chair. They looked at us and drew golden metal clubs from their belts.

"Téa, get to work," Bast ordered as I pushed Mokuba over to Téa. "Seto, you're welcome to help me."

The cat goddess unsheathed her knives. Her body began to glow with a green hue. An aura surrounded her, growing larger, like a bubble of energy, and lifting her off the ground. The aura took shape until Bast was encased in a holographic projection about four times her normal size. It was the image of the goddess in her ancient form – a twenty-foot-tall woman with the head of a cat. Floating in midair in the center of the hologram, Bast stepped forward. The cat goddess moved with her. It didn't seem possible, saying that I'd worked in making technology like that, that a see through image could have substance, but it's foot shook the ground. Bast raised her hand. The glowing green warrior did the same, unsheathing claws as long and sharp as rapiers. Bast swiped the sidewalk in front of her and shredded the pavement to concrete ribbons. She turned and smiled at me. The giant cat's head did likewise, baring horrible fangs that could've bitten me in half no problem.

"This," Bast said, "is combat magic."

At first I was too stunned to do anything but watch as Bast launched her green war machine into the middle of the carriers.

She slashed one carrier to pieces with a single swipe, then stomped on another and flattened him into a metal pancake. The other two carriers attacked her holographic legs, but their metal clubs bounced harmlessly off the ghostly light with showers of sparks.

Meanwhile Téa stood in front of the obelisk with her arms raised, shouting, "Open you stupid piece of rock!"

I pulled my sword off my back. My hands were shaking and I gave my head a shake. I was _not _afraid. All my time under my step-father's thumb had drilled anything childish like that out. But the last thing I'd ever wanted to do was charge into battle, but I knew I had to help. If there was anything I hated, it was owing someone. Bast had saved my life and now I was indebted to her. I owed her enough to help a little. ON the upside, going into battle with a twenty-foot-tall glowing warrior on my side tipped the scales so far into my favor, the carriers wouldn't stand a chance.

"Téa! I'm going to help Bast! Kepp Mokuba close and keep trying!"

"I am!"

"Seto!" Mokuba called. I smirked and ran forward just as Bast sliced the other two carriers apart like loaves of bread. With slight relief, I figured it was over and began to put my sword away.

The four carriers began to reform. The flat one peeled himself off the pavement. The sliced ones' pieces clicked together like magnets and the carriers stood good as new.

"Seto, help me hack them apart!" Bast called. "They need to be in smaller pieces!"

I tried to stay out of Bast's way as she sliced and stomped. Then as soon as she disabled a carrier, I went to work chopping it's remains into smaller pieces. They seemed more like mud than metal, because my blade slid through them as easily as an infant could tear apart string cheese.

Another few minutes and I was surrounded by piles of coppery rubble. Bast made a glowing fist and smashed the sedan to kindling.

"That wasn't so hard," I reported, sheathing my blade. "What were we running for?" Inside her glowing shell, Bast's face was coated with sweat. It hadn't occurred to me that a goddess could get tired, but her magic avatar must've taken a lot of energy if turning from Muffin to Bast had taken a lot of power in itself.

"We're not safe yet," she warned. "Téa, how's it coming?"

"It's not!" Téa complained.

"Isn't there another way?" Mokuba asked running over to me and latching himself around my hips. Before Bast could answer Téa's question, the bushes rustled with a new sound – like rain, except more slithery. A chill ran up my back. "What… what is that?" Mokuba asked.

"I don't know," I said, gripping the hilt of my sword tighter. "But I don't trust it."

"No," Bast murmured. "It can't be. Not her."

Then the bushes exploded. A thousand brown creepy-crawlies poured from the woods in a carpet of pure grossness – all pincers and stinging tails. I moved to push Mokuba back but he was stuck tight.

"Scorpions!" Téa shrieked. I snarled. Mokuba and Téa both hated anything smaller than their hands like rats or scorpions. Mokuba and I had traveled to Egypt enough to know that those things were everywhere. I'd found a couple in drawers or in the shower occasionally but Mokuba had been unfortunate enough to find one in his sock.

"Téa!" Bast called urgently.

"Nothing!" Téa cried as she ran over to me and latched onto my arm.

The scorpions kept coming – thousands upon thousands. Out of the woods, a woman appeared, walking fearlessly through the middle of the arachnids. She wore brown robes with gold jewelry glinting around her neck and arms. Her long black hair was cut Ancient Egyptian-style with a stronage crown on top. Then I realized it wasn't a crown – she had a live, supersize scorpion nesting on her head. Millions of the little nasties swirled around her like she was the center of their storm.

"Serqet," Bast growled.

"The scorpion goddess," I said. I probably would've been terrified if I hadn't been through what Gozaboro Kaiba put me through. A few arachnids didn't scare me anymore. "Can you take her?" I asked as the feeling in my arm left and Mokuba gripped me tighter.

Bast's expression didn't reassure me.

"Seto, Téa, Mokuba," she said, "this is going to get ugly. Get to the museum. Find the temple. It may protect you."

"What temple?" I asked.

"What about you?" Téa squeaked.

"I'll be fine. I'll catch up." But when Bast looked at me, I could tell she wasn't sure. She was just buying us time.

"But-" Téa started.

"Go!" Bast ordered. She turned her giant green cat warrior to face the mass of scorpions.

Normally, I would've objected to being ordered around and would've fought with her, but standing in front of all those scorpions with my siblings holding onto me like their lives depended on it, I knew what I had to do. I slung Mokuba over my shoulder, grabbed Téa's hand and we ran.

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**Phoenix: Hi guys! Been a while hasn't it? Well, I just want to say I just got back from watching Rise of the Guardians and if any of you have younger siblings or kids of your own or are trying to find a good family movie, I highly recommend it. Mainly because Jack Frost is HOT but that's just me and Seto Kaiba is ten times better. Remember, more reviews I get, the faster I update! BYE-BYE!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Phoenix: Hey everyone! I just wanted to thank all of you who have been patiently waiting for the next chapter of this story and I promise that I'll be working on my other ones as well, that is, once I finish this. Like Rick Riordan, I'll write the first story in the Percy – Sorry, Duke Devlin and the Olympians series and these stories will be written as crossovers from now on, along with the Chronicles of Narnia one I've got. I think it'll make it easier for you guys to find them and it was great advice from spoonerdog123. Just wanted to tell you guys to look in the Kane Chronicles crossover section for this story from now on. Well, I'm going to shut up now and let you guys enjoy the story. **

* * *

**_Téa_**

Alright, I'm taking the mic now. No way Seto'll be able to tell this part right, saying that it's about Kisara. (Shut up Seto, you know it's true.)  
Oh, who's Kisara? I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself.  
We raced into the entrance of the museum, and I had no idea as to why except for the fact that a giant, glowing green cat-woman had told us too. It was a rare and scary thing when my big brother actually listens to someone other than himself.  
On another note, you have to understand I was already devastated enough by what had happened to me already. First, my grandparents, who'd fought my father tooth and nail to keep me and yet keep my two brothers as far away as possible, had kicked me out of the flat. Then I discovered I was apparently "blood of the pharaohs" and born to a magical family and all sorts of other things that would've made me rub it in Seto's face about magic being real but it only brought me loads of trouble. And as soon as I'd found a new home – one where I could live with my two brothers with a nice room for me, I must say, good breakfast and wonderfully friendly pets – Uncle Amos leaves us, and my new crocodile and baboon friends were thrown in a river and the mansion was set on fire. And if that wasn't enough, my cat Muffin had decided to engage in a hopeless battle with a swarm of scorpions.  
Is it called a swarm with scorpions? A herd? A gaggle? Oh, nevermind. (No Seto, I'm not letting you take back the mic to give everyone a boring lecture on what groups of different animals are called! Shut up and let me tell the story! Geez!) Where was I? Oh yes.  
The point is, I couldn't believe I'd been asked to open a magic doorway when clearly I had absolutely no skill in the _idea _of how to acquire, let alone accomplish, the skills for the task and now my brother was dragging me away. I felt like a complete failure. (And no comment from you Seto. As I remember, you slung Mokie over you shoulder, grabbed my hand and ran! Not much help if you ask me! Don't give me that look you know it's true.)  
"We can't just leave Bast!" I shouted. "Look!"  
Seto kept running, dragging me along, but I could see quite clearly what was happening back at the obelisk. A mass of scorpions had crawled up Bast's glowing green legand were wriggling into the hologram like it was pudding. Bast smashed hundreds of them with her feet and fists, but there were just too many. Soon they were up to her waist, and her ghostly shell began to flicker. Meanwhile, the brown-robed goddess advanced slowly, and I had the feeling she would be worse than any number of scorpions.  
Seto yanked me through a row of bushes and I lost sight of Bast. We burst onto Fifth Avenue, which seemed ridiculously normal after the magic battle. Seto let Mokuba get off his back and he lead us down the sidewalk, shoved through a bunch of pedestrians, and climbed the steps into the Met.  
A banner above the entrance was announcing some sort of special Christmas event or other, probably the reason the place was even open on a holiday, but I didn't have time to read the details before my brothers yanked me through the doors.  
What did it look like? Well, it was a museum: huge entry hall, lots of columns and all that junk. I can't say that I spent a lot of time checking out the décor or the gift shop, thanks to my brothers. I do remember the queues for ticket windows, because we ran right past them. There were also security guards, because they yelled at us as we dashed into the exhibits. By luck, we ended up in the Egyptian area, in front of a reconstructed tomb sort of place with narrow halls. Seto probably could've told you what the structure was supposed to be, but honestly I don't care and it would probably put you to sleep. (Shut up Seto. Really. I don't interrupt you this often. Not all of us are made to learn hundreds of new facts and memorize them instantly every single day! Geez!)  
"Come on," I said.  
We slipped inside the exhibit, which proved quite enough to lose the security guards, or maybe they just had better things to do than chase kids all over the place.  
When we popped out again, we sneaked around until we were sure we weren't being followed. The Egypt wing wasn't crowded at all – just a few clumps of old people and a foreign tour group with a guide explaining a sarcophagus in French. "Et voice la momic!"  
Oddly enough, no one seemed to notice the gigantic sword strapped to Seto's back, which was way beyond a security issue (and much more interesting than the exhibits.) A few old people did give us odd looks, but I'd bet that was because we were dressed in linen pajamas, drenched in sweat, and covered in grass and leaves. My hair was probably a nightmare as well.  
I found an empty room and pulled my brothers aside. The glass cases were full of shabti. A few days earlier I wouldn't have given them so much as a second glance. Now, I kept looked at them warily, absolutely certain they'd come alive at any second and try to bash my head into pulp.  
"What now?" I asked Seto. "Did you see any temple?"  
"No," he said irritated. He looked around and I could see his jaw moving to bite his tongue, something he and Dad had done whenever they were trying to remember something. "I think it's a rebuilt temple down that hall…or is that at the Brooklyn Museum? Or was that Munich?"  
"Sorry Téa," Mokuba started. "We've been to so many museums trying to keep away from Gozaboro that they kind of mesh together after a while."  
"Aw, poor boys. Getting to travel the world with your big rich step-daddy and miss school and spend time together while I only get two stinking days a year to be with you guys!" I shouted as I turned away. Then Seto did something I wasn't expecting. He grabbed my arm and yanked me back around. His eyes were burning with anger and he looked just about ready to hit me with his sword.  
"You have no idea just how lucky you are," he snarled. His grip tightened and for the first time in my life, I was actually afraid he was going to hurt me. "You get a home! You get friends, a normal life! You didn't wake up every morning knowing that what you did that day would mean the difference between a meal or starvation for that boy!" He pointed right at Mokuba and his grip tightened further. "You didn't watch your step-father fling himself out a window twenty stories above ground! You didn't-"  
The glass case next to us shattered, spraying glass at our feet. Seto looked at me, bewildered.  
"Did we just-"  
"Just like your birthday cake," Seto said. Mokuba gave himself a shake.  
"You two need to control your tempers!" he said.  
"What?!" I said. Alarms began to blare. Red lights pulsed in the hall. A garbled voice came on the loudspeaker and said something about proceeding calmly to the exits. The French tour group ran past us, screaming in panic, followed by a crowd of remarkably fast old people with walkers and canes. "Maybe we should continue this argument later," I said. "Come on!"  
We ran down another hall, and the sirens died as suddenly as they'd started. The blood-red lights kept pulsing in eerie silence. Then I heard it: the slithering, clacking sounds of scorpions.  
"What about Bast?!" My voice cracked. "Is she-" Seto gave me a hard look. You can't get any sympathy from him, I swear.  
"Best not to think about it Téa," he said.  
"You know Seto sis," Mokuba said. "Keep moving forward and don't look back."  
Soon we were hopelessly lost. As far as I could tell, the Egyptian part of the museum was designed to be as confusing as possible, with dead ends and halls that doubled back on themselves. We passed hieroglyphic scrolls, gold jewelry, sarcophagi, statues of pharaohs, and huge chunks of limestone. Why would someone display a rock? Aren't there enough of those in the world?  
We saw no one, but the slithering sounds grew louder no matter which way we ran. Finally I rounded a corner and smacked straight into someone.  
I yelped and scrambled backwards, only to stumble into my brothers. All three of us fell on our rear ends in a most unflattering way. I find it quite a miracle neither Seto nor Mokuba were skewered by Seto's sword.  
"Get off me Téa," Mokuba said from underneath me. I scampered off him as fast as I could and raised my hands in slight surrender as he dusted himself off.  
"Sorry Mokuba," I said. I looked up at the girl.  
I had the feeling I should remember her from somewhere. But nothing was coming to memory.  
She didn't look much taller than me and she probably wasn't much older. Her white hair also had bits of blue and silver coloration in the shadows and lights and most of it was cut choppily. The shortest strand fell to the tip of her nose and the longest ones fell to her knees. She had pale-ivory skin but it didn't look like she was sick, more like one of her parents had been albino and she'd inherited the pale color and her features were vaguely Arab. Her eyes – lined with black kohl, Egyptian style – were a sort of mix of every shade and hue of blue but more on the darker side that was either very beautiful or really, really scary. I really couldn't decide which one. She had a backpack over her shoulder and wore sandals and pure white, loose-fitting linen clothes like ours. She looked as if she were on her way to a martial arts class. Good grief, now that I think of it, we probably looked the same way. How embarrassing.  
The girl continued to stare at us as if she was unimpressed and Seto leapt to his feet and drew his sword. He moved in front of Mokuba and me and held it so just one step further and the tip of that thing would be in her neck. I think he was trying to protect me. Can you believe the nerve?!  
"Get back," he warned. The girl looked at the tip of the blade like it was a stick of butter before reaching into her sleeve and produced a curved white piece of ivory – an Egyptian wand. She flicked it to one side, and Seto's sword flew out of his hands and clattered to the floor.  
"Don't embarrass yourself," the girl said sternly. "Where is Amos?"  
Seto looked a bit too stunned or too angry to speak, I really couldn't tell which. The girl looked at me. Her blue eyes were both beautiful and scary, I decided, and I didn't like her a bit.  
"Well?" she demanded.  
I didn't see why I needed to tell her a dang thing, but then an uncomfortable pressure began to build in my chest, like a burp trying to get free. I heard myself say, "Amos is gone. He left this morning." Seto and Mokuba both gave me shocked expressions.  
"And the cat demon?"  
"That's my cat," I said. "And she's a goddess, not a demon. She saved us from the scorpions!"  
Seto rolled his eyes, snatched up his sword and pointed it at the girl again. Full credit for persistence I guess.  
"Who are you? What do you want?" he said through clenched teeth. "As I recall from the museum, the girl you were with wanted to gut us with a knife. Are you here to do what she couldn't?!" The girl looked at him like he was a boring documentary she had to watch for class, which does suit my brother quite well. (Don't poke me Seto! You know it's true!)  
"My name is Kisara Rashid." She tilted her head as if listening.  
Right on cue, the entire building rumbled. Dust sprinkled from the ceiling, and the slithering sounds of scorpions doubled in volume behind us.  
"And right now, my job is to save your miserable lives," she said sounding like she'd been expecting way more from us. "Let's go," she said as she turned on her heel and started down the hall.  
I guess we could've said no, but our choices were Kisara or the scorpions, so we ran after her.  
She passed a case full of statues and casually tapped the glass with her wand. Tiny granite pharaohs and limestone gods stirred at her command. They hopped off their pedestals and crashed through the glass. Some wielded weapons. Others simply cracked their stone knuckles. They let us pass, but stared down the hall behind us as if waiting for the enemy.  
"Hurry," Kisara told us. "These will only-"  
"Buy us time," I said. "Yea, we know all about that sort of thing." Kisara glared at me.  
"You talk too much," she reported without stopping. Seto chuckled as if he concurred with her.  
I was about to make quite the comeback. Seriously, I would've put that girl in her place the way she deserved. But just then we emerged into an enormous room and my voice completely abandoned me.  
"Whoa," Mokuba said.  
I couldn't help agreeing with my baby brother. The place was extremely whoa.  
The room was the size of a football stadium. One wall was made completely of glass and looked out on the park. In the middle of the room, on a raised platform, an ancient building had been reconstructed. There was a freestanding stone gateway about forty feet tall, and behind that was an open courtyard and square stone structure made of uneven sandstone blocks carved all over on the outside with images of gods and pharaohs and hieroglyphs. Flanking the building's entrance were two stone columns bathed in eerie light.  
"An Egyptian temple," I guessed.  
"The Temple of Dendur," Kisara said with a nod. "Actually it was built by the Romans-"  
"While they occupied Egypt. I believe Augustus commissioned it." Kisara turned, smiling gently.  
"Yes," she said quietly.  
"Cool," Mokuba said.  
"Would you two like to be left alone with a history textbook?" I asked. Seto and Kisara snapped around to glare at me.  
"At any rate," Kisara continued. "The temple was dedicated to Isis, so it will provide enough power to open a gate."  
"To summon more gods?" I asked. Kisara snapped around again and fixed me with a blazing look in her eyes. A cold feeling raced down my spine and I was half tempted to hide behind Seto. (Yes Seto, I just said that. Now shut up.)  
"Accuse me of that again, and I will cut out your tongue."  
"Please feel free to do so whenever," Seto said. Kisara chuckled lightly before shaking her head.  
"What I meant was a gateway to get out of here." I was completely lost, but I was getting used to it. We followed Kisara up the steps and through the temple's stone gateway.  
The courtyard was empty, abandoned by the fleeing museum visitors, which made it feel quite creepy. Giant carvings of gods stared down at me. Hieroglyphic inscriptions were everywhere, and I was afraid that if I concentrated on them too hard, I might be able to read them.  
Kisara stopped at the front steps of the temple. She held up her wand and wrote in the air. A familiar hieroglyph burned between the columns.  
Open – the same symbol Odion had used at the Rosetta Stone. I waited for something to blow up, but the hieroglyph simply faded.  
Kisara opened her backpack.  
"We'll make our stand here until the gate can be opened."  
"Can't you just open it now?" Seto asked. Kisara shook her head.  
"Portals can only be opened at auspicious moments," Kisara said. "Sunrise, sunset, midnight, eclipses, astrological alignments, the exact time of a god's birth-"  
"Oh come on," I said. "Even Seto couldn't know all of that. How could you possibly?"  
"It takes years to memorize the complete calendar," Kisara explained as if my interruption had been nothing at all. "But the next auspicious moment is easy: high noon. Ten and a half minutes from now."  
She didn't check a watch. I wondered how the heck she knew the time so precisely, but I decided it wasn't the most important question.  
"Why should we trust you?" I asked. "According to Seto, your little friend wanted to gut us with a knife. And what did you mean by our miserable lives?!"  
"Irene has always been one for the easier path. And I am in slight agreement with her that killing you three would've been simpler but my superiors and I both believe that you're also innocents. So for now, no one can kill you. You just have to stick with me. As for your miserable lives, I heard your argument. Such a horrible thing to watch a member of your family die, whether or not they're related to you. But in order to keep you three away from the Red Lord, we'll have to trust each other. I am willing to trust you but are you three willing to trust me?"  
"If you can teach me how to do that thing you did with Seto's sword, sure!" Mokuba said. Kisara smiled.  
"Oh, I'm convinced. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside," I said.  
Kisara reached into her bag and took out four little statues – animal-headed men, each about five centimeters tall. She handed them to me. "Put the sons of Horus around us at the cardinal points."  
"I beg your pardon?" She rolled her eyes.  
"North, south, east, west." She spoke slowly, as if I was some kind of idiot.  
"I know compass directions! But-"  
"That's north." Kisara pointed out the wall of glass. "Figure out the rest."  
I did what she said, though I didn't really see how these tiny men were supposed to protect us. Meanwhile Kisara gave Mokuba a piece of chalk and told him to draw a circle around us and for Seto to make sure nothing gets inside the circle while it was being drawn and that it was being drawn correctly.  
"Is this for magic protection?" Mokuba asked. "Like what Odion used at the museum."  
"And we saw how well that worked," I muttered. Mokuba rubbed the spot on his chest where he'd been cut but Seto ignored me, not surprising. What was surprising was that he seemed so eager to please Kisara he and Mokuba jumped right to the task of their sidewalk art.  
Then Kisara took something else from her bag – a plain wooden rod like the one that was in Dad's bag, still strapped over Seto's back. Kisara spoke a word to the rod and it extended in her hand until it was about as tall as she was and the pure white wood glimmered in the room's lights and was topped with a carved lion's head. She twirled it around single-handedly like a baton – just showing off, I'm sure – while holding her wand in her other hand.  
Mokuba finished the chalk circle as the first scorpions appeared at the gallery's entrance.  
"How much longer on that gate?" I asked. Oh man I was praying that I didn't sound as absolutely terrified as I felt. Two things I hate in this world: Rats and scorpions.  
"Stay inside the circle no matter what," Kisara ordered. "When the gate opens, jump through. And keep behind me!"  
She touched her wand to the chalk circle, spoke another word, and the circle began to glow dark red.  
Hundreds of scorpions swarmed towards the temple, turning the floor into a living mass of claws and stingers. Then the woman in brown, Serqet, entered the gallery. She smiled at us coldly.  
"Kisara," I said, "that's a goddess. She defeated Bast. No offence or anything but what kind of chance do you have of beating her?" Kisara looked at me. A smirk played across her lips and a glimmer of mischievous light appeared in her eye.  
Kisara held up her staff and the air began to smell of ozone as tiny bolts of electricity appeared in the lion's mouth, traveling into Kisara's hand. The light actually lit up the entire room. "I am a scribe to the House of Life, Téa Gardner. I am trained to fight gods."

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**Phoenix: Hi guys! I just want you to know that I'll be switching this and a few of my re-writes to their proper places like this story will go into the crossovers of Yu-Gi-Oh and the Kane Chronicles so check me out there. And be sure to review. More reviews makes a happier Phoenix and a happier Phoenix makes more chapters faster.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Phoenix: I am so tired of school! I have this week, next week and then a four-day week of exams after that until my winter break! I pray I can last that long. I was dissecting a rat in my biology lab today and got the juices on my front. Nasty. Anyway, now that I've got you filled in on my life, nasty as it is, it's time to get on to the story. With luck and hope, you'll get that image I just gave you out of your heads.**

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**_Téa_**

Well, that was all cool and impressive I guess. The best part for me was Seto's face – he looked like an excited puppy. (Oh, stop trying to shove me off the bed. You did too!) `  
But I felt less sure about Miss Kisara "I'm-So-Magical" Rashid when the army of scorpions scuttled towards us. I would've never thought that so many scorpions lived in the world, let alone in Manhattan. The glowing circle around us seemed insignificant protection against millions of those nasty arachnids crawling over one another, many layers deep, and the woman in brown, who was even more horrible.  
From a distance she looked all right, but as she got closer I saw that Serqet's pale skin glistened like an insect shell. Her eyes were beady black. Her long, dark hair was unnaturally thick, as if made from a million bristling bug antennae. And when she opened her mouth, sideways mandibles snapped and retracted outside her regular human teeth.  
I felt something move under my hands and realized that I'd grabbed onto Seto's arm.  
The goddess stopped about twenty feet away, studying us. Her hateful black eyes fixed on Kisara.  
"Give me the younglings." Her voice was harsh and raspy, making me sort of curious if she'd said a word in centuries. Kisara crossed her staff and wand.  
"I am a mistress of the elements, Scribe to the First Nome. Be gone or be destroyed." The bolts of lightning on her staff became mixed with a ball of blue fire at the tip.  
Serqet clicked her mandibles in what must've been a gruesome, foamy grin. I felt Mokuba grab hold of me from behind. A few hundred of her scorpions advanced and I heard a squeak come from my throat. Once the first dozen touched the glowing protection circle, they sizzled and turned to ashes. Trust me, nothing – and I mean nothing – smells worse than burning scorpion.  
The rest of the horrible creepy-crawlies retreated, swirling around the goddess and crawled up her legs. I shuddered, realizing that they were wriggling into her robes. After just a few short seconds every last scorpion had vanished into the brown folds of her clothes.  
The air behind Serqet seemed to darken, as if her shadow was growing larger and longer. Then the darkness rose up and arched over Serqet, making a scorpion tail probably five times as big as I was.  
I felt Seto's clothes under my arms again but this time I was too scared to care.  
Serqet's shadow tail lashed down at us with blazing speed, but Kisara raised her wand and the stinger bounced off the ivory tip. Steam rolled off Kisara's wand, smelling of sulfur.  
Kisara pointed her staff towards the goddess, engulfing her in a typhoon of blue fire and arcs of blue lightning flashed in and out of existence. Serqet screamed and staggered backwards, but the fire died almost instantly. Serqet's clothes were smoking and seared, but the goddess herself looked more angry than hurt.  
"Your days are over, magician. That precious House of yours is weak. Lord Set will lay waste to this wretched land!"  
Kisara threw her wand like the boomerang it resembled. It smashed against the shadow tail and exploded into a blinding flash of white light. Serqet screeched, lurched back and averted her eyes, and as she did, I noticed Kisara reach into her sleeve and brought out something small enough to be closed in her fist.  
_"The wand was a diversion,_" I thought. _"A magician's sleight of hand._"  
Then Kisara decided to do something reckless and stupid: she leaped out of the magic circle – the very thing she'd told us not to do.  
"Kisara!" Mokuba called. "The gate!"  
I looked behind me, and my heart nearly came to a skittering halt. The space between the two columns at the temple's entrance was now a vertical column of sand as tall as Seto. It looked like I was looking into the funnel of an enormous sideways hourglass. There was a sort of gravity pulling me towards it.  
"I am _not _going in that _thing_!" I said but another flash of light snapped my attention back to Kisara.  
The white-haired girl and the goddess were involved in a dangerous dance. Kisara twirled and spun her with her staff still letting loose random lightning bolts and burning with blue fire and everywhere she passed, she left a trail of blue flames in the air. I had to admit (though I didn't like it): Kisara was almost as graceful and impressive as Bast.  
Suddenly, I had the oddest desire to help. I wanted – very badly, in fact – to step outside the circle and engage in combat. It was a completely crazy idea, I know. What could I do besides get in the way? But I had the gnawing feeling in ,my gut that I shouldn't – _couldn't _– jump through that portal without helping Kisara.  
Seto's sword appeared in front of my nose.  
"What do you think you're doing?" Without my realizing it, my foot had almost stepped over the line of chalk.  
To be honest, I didn't have an answer, but I glanced at Kisara and heard myself speak in a sort of trance, "She's going to use ribbons. They won't work."  
"What?" Mokuba asked. Seto just looked at me like I was insane. Scary part was: I was beginning to think I was going crazy as well.  
"We have to go through the gate!" he shouted. Just then, Kisara opened her fist, blew lightly on the contents and small red tendrils fluttered into existence. _Ribbons._ How had I known? They zipped around like they were living creatures – like eels underwater – and grew larger.  
Serqet was too busy with the fire, trying to keep Kisara from caging her. At first she didn't even take notice of the ribbons, which continued to grow until they were almost as tall as me. I counted four, five, six, seven in total. They zipped around, orbiting Serqet, tearing through her shadow scorpion tail as if it were nothing more than an illusion. Finally they wrapped around Serqet's body, pinning her arms and legs. She screamed as if the ribbons were made of fire. She dropped to the ground and her shadow tail melted away into an inky haze.  
Kisara spun to a stop. She pointed her staff at the fallen goddess's face. The ribbons began to glow, and the goddess hissed in pain, cursing in a language I didn't know.  
"I bind you with the Seven Ribbons of Hathor," Kisara said. "Release your host and return to the Duat or your essence shall burn for eternity."  
"Your death shall be eternal you foolish girl!" Serqet screamed. Kisara's face became stony and her eyes narrowed dangerously. "You have made an enemy of Set!"  
Kisara didn't seem affected by the goddess's words in the least, in fact she looked pleased. She twisted her staff, and Serqet fell sideways, writhing and smoking.  
"I will… not…" the goddess hissed. But then her black eyes went milky and she lay still.  
"Kisara! The gate!" Seto shouted. "Come on its closing!"  
"I turned and looked, sure enough, the tunnel of sand seemed to be moving more slowly and the magic tug had lessened somewhat.  
Kisara approached the fallen goddess. She touched Serqet's forehead and black smoke billowed from her mouth. Serqet began to transform and shrank until a completely different woman was ensnared in the ribbons. She still had pale skin and black hair but other than that, she looked… well, human.  
"Who is that?" I asked.  
"The host. Some poor mortal who-" Kisara stopped short and looked up. The black haze wasn't dissipating anymore. It was getting darker and swirling into a more solid form.  
"Oh crud," I whispered.  
"Impossible," Kisara whispered. "The Ribbons are too powerful. There's no way Serqet could re-form so quickly. Unless-"  
"Like it or not Kisara, she _is _re-forming!" Seto shouted. "Unless you want to find another way out of here, let's go! The gate's closing!"  
I was surprised he actually wanted to jump through a churning wall of sand, but as the shadow began to take the shape of a two-story scorpion – and an angry scorpion at that – I knew what I wanted to do.  
"Coming!" I called.  
"Kisara! Now!" Seto barked. The white-haired girl nodded.  
"Perhaps you are correct," she said. She turned and the four of us plunged into the swirling sandy vortex.

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**Phoenix: Well, that does it. I finished exams, I'm almost all set for the holidays (just need to buy a present for my mom) and I've got a good part of another chapter coming. Check out my profile page and vote. And in the box below please review. Did you like the story so far? Review below? Do you think I made good selections of my characters? Review below. Do you have a purple cat named Misty who likes to wear onesies? What the heck, review below!**


	12. Chapter 12

**Phoenix: Hey guys. I just want to say, please review and vote on my profile! It's open to everyone, anonymous or not! I own nothing but the idea.**

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**_Seto_**

My turn.

First off, Téa's little puppy dog comment was completely out of line! I was _not _starry-eyed about Kisara. I am Seto stinking Kaiba! I don't do that sort of thing! I just don't meet a whole lot of girls that don't leap on me screaming or can throw fireballs with lightning and battle gods. (Stop making faces at me Téa, you look like Khufu.)

So we jumped through the sand tunnel.

Everything became dark. I got that weightless top-of-the-roller-coaster feeling in my gut. Hot sands whipped around us and my skin burned.

Then I tumbled out onto a cold tile floor with my siblings and Kisara crashing on top of me. No, I did not take notice of the fact that Kisara landed firmly on my front or the fact the her hair fell in a way that made a white curtain around the two of us nor did I notice that her eyes had lighter shades of blue near the rims that got darker as they neared the pupil. No, I noticed none of that. (What are you talking about the Nile for Téa?)

"Ow," I grumbled. Kisara shot to her feet and began brushing off a layer of sand that covered her skin like powdered sugar.

I took a look around as I stood up. We were in a large building like a shopping mall, complete with the frantic crowds.

No…It wasn't a mall. It was a two-story airport concourse, with shops, lots of windows and polished steel columns. Outside it was dark so it was pretty obvious we weren't in New York, or probably in America at all. I doubted we were on the North American continent at all. Announcements were echoing over the intercom in a language that sounded like Arabic. Téa spat sand out of her mouth.

"Yuck," Mokuba commented.

"Come on," Kisara said. "We shouldn't stick around too long." I helped Mokuba up. Honestly, in an airport it seems like some people forget that they don't exist in the world by themselves. A family arguing in something I couldn't catch rushed by and almost plowed over Téa with their suitcases. (I really wish they had though. And ther's the punch to the arm I was expecting. Ow! Jeez what the heck was that for?!)

I turned around and something in the corner of my eye caught my attention. In the middle of the concourse was a life-sized replica of an Ancient Egyptian barge much like Amos' boat made from glowing display cases – a sales counter for perfume and jewelry.

"This is the Cairo airport," I reported. Kisara looked at me like she was in a sort of awed shock that I knew that.

"Y-Yes, we are. Now we should probably get going." Mokuba looked nervous.

"What's with the rush?" Téa asked.

"Can…Can Serqet follow us through that sand gate?" Mokuba asked. Kisara shook her head.

"When an artifact creates a portal it over heats and requires a twelve-hour cooldown before it can be used again. However, there's still the airport security to worry about. Now, unless you want to meet the Egyptian police, we'll get a move on!" She grabbed our arms and the neck of Mokuba's clothes and hauled us through the crowd.

I figured we looked like beggars in our old-fashioned clothes, covered in sand from head to toe. Most of the people gave us a wide berth but no one even made an attempt to stop us.

"Why are we here?" Téa asked. "Couldn't we have gone somewhere else like Paris or Memphis or do all portals automatically go to the Egyptian airport?" Kisara shook her head like she was annoyed.

"We're here to see the ruins of Heliopolis," she replied.

"Inside the airport?" Téa said in a rather sarcastic tone. What was eating her anyway? (What are you looking at me like that for?)

My scalp tingled as something came to memory that Dad had told me years ago before Mokuba was born.

"Téa, the ruins are _under _us." Kisara looked at me with a light look of relief.

"I'm glad at least _one _of you knows a thing or two." The look in her eye was pushing me to say more.

"And here's another little thing I know; the ancient city was pillaged centuries ago. Some of the monuments were carted away, Cleopatra's two needles for example, and most of the temples were broken down in order to make new buildings. What was left vanished under Cairo's suburbs while the largest section is under this very airport." Kisara nodded.

"Very nicely done."

"Wonderful. You two sure you don't want a history textbook?" Téa asked. I shot a glare at her. "Anyway, how does any of that help us, besides putting us to sleep?" Kisara released us and kicked open a maintenance door. On the other side was a broom closet. Kisara muttered a command – "_Sahad" – _and the image of the closet vanished, revealing a set of stone steps leading downwards.

"Because not _all _of Heliopolis is in ruins," Kisara said. "Follow closely and touch _nothing._"

The stairs must've lead down at least a league* or more, because we just kept going lower and lower. The passage was probably made for people about Mokuba's height, too. We had to crouch and crawl most of the way and even so, I kept bonking my head on the ceiling. The only light was from the small ball of blue fire in Kisara's palm, which made shadows to dance across the walls.

My father had told me about places like this when I was young and even read stories with these types of places in them. Every time I was described the tunnels so tightly fitting my father or the main character, I always felt like it was me underneath all that rock and earth and it always made me nervous. One tiny shift and all those tons of rock would come down on me.

Finally, we reached the bottom. The tunnel opened up and Kisara stopped almost instantly. After my eyes adjusted, I could see why. We were standing at the edge of a chasm.

A single wooden plank spanned the void. On the opposite side, two jackal-headed granite warriors flanked the doorway, their spears crossed over the entrance. Téa groaned.

"Not more psychotic statues," she whined. Kisara glared at her.

"Do not joke," she chided. "This is an entrance to the First Nome, the oldest branch of the House of Life, headquarters for all magicians. My job was to get you here safely but I cannot help you cross. Every magician must unbar the path for herself, and the challenge is different for each supplicant." She was looking at Téa like she was expecting something, which got on my nerves. First it was Bast (which I could understand since Bast had been with Téa since my sister had been little) and now Kisara – both of them treated Téa like she was the only one of the family that could do something not just anyone could do. I mean, sure, she'd been able to blast the library doors open, but why wasn't anyone looking at me like I should be doing something rather than stand around and play guard dog.

Then there was the fact that I was still ticked about Téa's comments in the museum about how I'd had it good traveling the world with my step-father. She had absolutely no idea what I'd been forced to endure day after day, how many times I wanted to throw in the towel and just leave, how often I wished that my parents were still alive or that I didn't have to travel or wish that I didn't have to wake up almost every morning wondering what country I was in. Even I couldn't count how many times I'd wanted to go to school like a normal kid and be able to make friends and have fun the way she'd been able to. But I couldn't complain, both my real father and Roland had drilled two ideas into my head while I grew up: 1) Fair means that everyone gets what they need and the only way to get what you need is to make it happen yourself. 2) I had to look impeccable.

I could understand my father saying that, since my grandfather had come to America from Egypt people would start to judge me whether or not I looked my heritage as I grew older so I actually had to dress like I had something important I had to do. When I was adopted Roland hadn't just meant my clothes, he meant my attitude. With my parents dead, Téa being raised by our grandparents who hated us and not to mention the atrocities Gozaboro put us through, I was all Mokuba had and he need me to be strong. Most of the time, I didn't mind I loved my brother. But sometimes it could be hard as well.

Téa wouldn't ever be able to understand that sort of thing. _She _was the one who had it easy. And now she was the one getting all the attention. I know neither Kisara nor Bast meant to and it wasn't fair of me to think that they were saying, "Thanks for all your help, now go chew on a bone in your doghouse." But it still made my fist clench. It wasn't fair.

I heard Dad and Roland's voices in my head, reciting a line I knew all too well. "Fairness means everyone gets what they need and the only way to get what you need is to make it happen yourself."

I don't know what the heck got into me, but I drew my sword and started across the plank. It was like my legs were working by themselves, not waiting for any messages from my brain. Part of me, probably the more sensible side, thought: _This is a very bad idea. _But another part of me answered: _No, we do not fear this._ And the voice didn't sound like mine.

"Seto!" Mokuba called.

I kept walking. As much as I willed myself not to look down at the yawning void below my feet, but the sheer size of the chasm made me gyroscope toys, spinning and wobbling as I crossed the narrow plank.

As I got closer to the opposite side, the doorway between the two statues began to glow, almost like a curtain of red light draped over them.

I took a deep breath. Maybe the light was a portal, like the gate of sand. If I just charged through fast enough…

Then the first dagger shot out of the tunnel. I heard one of my siblings yell but I couldn't tell which.

My sword was in motion before I realized it. The dagger should've impaled me right in the heart, but somehow I deflected it with my blade and sent it sailing into the abyss. Two more daggers shot out of the tunnel. Sure I'll admit my reflexes were pretty good but they'd never been the absolute best and now they seemed to have sped up somehow. I ducked the first dagger and hooked the other with the curved blade of my sword and flung it back into the tunnel.

_"How the heck did I even do that?!" _

I advanced to the end of the plank and slashed through the light, which flickered and died. I waited for the statues to come alive, but nothing happened. After a few seconds, the sound of the very first dagger clattering on the rocks at the bottom of the chasm.

The doorway began to glow again. The red light coalesced into a strange form; a five-foot-tall bird with a man's head. I raised my sword but someone latched my arm.

"Seto no!" Kisara cried as the bird-creature folded his wings. His eyes, lined with kohl, narrowed as they studied me. A black ornamental wig glistened on his head and his face was etched with wrinkles. A fake braided pharaoh's beard was stuck on his chin like some sort of weird backwards ponytail. If not for the red light around him and the fact from the neck down he was the world's largest killer turkey, he didn't look too hostile.

A chilling thought raced through my mind: This was a bird with a human head, the same form I'd imagined taking when I slept in Amos' house, when my soul left my body and flew to Phoenix. I had no idea what that meant but it scared me. And that was saying something.

The bird creature scratched at the stone floor. Then, unexpectedly, he smiled.

"_Pari, niswa nafeer," _he told me, or at least that's what it sounded like. Kisara gasped and released my arm, stepping back and drawing my attention to Téa and Mokuba who'd crossed the plank without my notice. Kisara's face was paler than normal.

"What?" I asked. Kisara seemed to collect herself and bowed to the bird creature. Téa did the same and Mokuba followed her example.

The creature winked at me, as if we'd shared a good joke. Then he vanished. The red light faded. The statues retracted their arms, uncrossing their spears from the entrance.

"That's it? Not much of a challenge," I said. "What did the turkey say anyway? I didn't catch it."

Kisara seemed to gain a sudden interest in everything as long as it was three feet or more away from me and when she did make eye contact with me, her eyes seemed to be filled with some sort of fear. After a few seconds, she licked her full pink lips and took a deep breath.

"That wasn't a turkey Seto. That was a _ba."_

"A human soul right?" I said, remembering what Amos had said and my odd urge to throw him into Phillip of Macedonia's pool.

"Correct. In this case, a soul of the dead. A magician from ancient times, come back to serve as a guardian. They watch over the entrances of the House." She studied my face as if I'd just developed some horrible rash or something. I'd spent every day since I was twelve learning how to read people and understand the emotions from their faces or in their eyes but as I looked at Kisara, I realized that even if I could read her like a book, I would only be reading the back cover and not even getting close to understanding what was underneath.

"What? What are you staring at?" I asked. Kisara shook her head and developed an interest in the floor again.

"No. It's nothing. We'd best hurry." Without another word, she took a step forward but the only thing was, this side of the chasm was only wide enough that if she wanted to go further, she'd have to either walk right through me or we'd have to work together in very close perimeters that I was not exactly used to.

Kisara came to a halt right in front of me and tried to step one way, realized it wouldn't work, tried the other way and got the same result. Kisara bit on her bottom lip like she was nervous.

I looked behind me, the hall didn't seem to get any wider the further down we went. I sighed and took hold of Kisara's arms, causing the girl to gasp as I lifted her up her feet and set her on the ground behind me.

She ran a hand over her hair and pushed a piece behind her ear before turning on her heel and heading into the hall. I turned back to my siblings. Téa was staring at me.

"Alright, what did the bird guy say? You understood it I presume?" She nodded like she wished that she couldn't understand it.

"He mistook you for someone else. He must have bad eyes."

"Because?" I made a motion with my hand for emphasis as I sheathed my sword.

"Because he said, 'Go forth, good king.'"

* * *

I was in some sort of a daze after that. We passed through the tunnel and entered a vast underground city of halls and chambers, but I only remember bits and pieces of it.

The ceilings soared to twenty or thirty feet, so it didn't feel like we were underground. Every chamber was lined with massive stone columns like the ones my father had shown me in pictures of Egyptian ruins, but these were in mint condition and brightly painted to resemble palm trees complete with carved green fronds. With a little imagination one could probably imagine they were walking through a petrified forest. Fires burned in copper braziers. They didn't seem to make any smoke but the air smelled good, like some sort of marketplace for spices – cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and others I couldn't identify. The smell reminded me of how Kisara smelled when she landed on me in the airport. This place must be her home or something of the sort.

There were a few other people – mostly elderly people. Some wore linen robes and others in modern clothes. One man in a business suit walked past us with a black leopard on a leash, and no one bothered to look at it like it was perfectly normal. Another guy barked orders to a small army of buckets, mops and brooms that were scuttling around, cleaning up the city. The scene seemed familiar but I couldn't tell where.

"It's like that cartoon," Téa said like she'd read my mind. "You know, the one where Mickey Mouse tries to do magic and the brooms keep splitting and toting water all over the place."

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice," Kisara said. "You do realize that the idea for that movie came from an Egyptian story, right?" Téa just stared back. I knew how she felt. It was a bit too much to process.

We walked through a hall of jackal-headed statues and I swear, the eyes moved to watch me as I passed. A few minutes later, Kisara lead us through an open-air market – if you can call it open-air if it's underground – with dozens of stalls selling weird like boomerang wands, animated clay dolls, parrots, cobras, papyrus scrolls, and hundreds of different glittering amulets.

Next we crossed a path of stones over a dark river teeming with fish. They looked like perch if it wasn't for their teeth.

"Are those piranhas?" I asked.

"Tiger fish from the Nile," Kisara said. "They are like piranhas but these can weigh up to sixteen pounds." I decided it might be a good idea to watch my step from now on.

We turned a corner and passed an ornate building carved out of black rock. Seated pharaohs were chiseled into the walls, and the doorway was shaped like a coiled serpent.

"What's in here?" Téa asked. We peeked inside and saw rows of children – maybe two dozen or so – sitting cross-legged on cushions. They were hunched over brass bowls, peering intently into some sort of liquid and speaking under their breath. At first I thought it was a classroom, then I noticed there was no teacher and the chamber was lit with a few candles alone. Judging by the number of empty seat, the room could hold about twice as many kids.

"Our initiates," Kisara said, "learning to scry. The First Nome must keep in contact with our brethren all over the world. We use our youngest as…operators, I suppose is the correct word."

"So there's bases like this all over the world?" I asked. Kisara shrugged a shoulder.

"Most are much smaller, but yes. There's three hundred sixty in all."

"So let me get this straight," I started, "Egypt is the First Nome and Brooklyn is the Twenty-First-"

"Greater New York is the Twenty-First Nome," Kisara corrected. "I'm sorry, continue?"

"Okay, and since there's three hundred sixty Nomes in total, what's the last one?"

"That would be Antarctica. A punishment assignment. Nothing there but a couple of cold magicians and some magic penguins."

"Magic penguins?" Téa asked with a shiver. I don't know what it was, but the little flightless birds creeped her out*.

"Don't ask," Kisara said as she turned around. Téa pointed to the children inside. "How does it work? They see images in the water?"

"It's oil but yes," Kisara said turning back around.

"There's so few. Are these the only initiates in the city?" Kisara seemed to get a little sadder.

"In the whole world," she sighed. "There were more before-" She stopped short.

"Before what?" I asked.

"Nothing," Kisara said darkly. I met her eyes and I could tell that if I pushed her, she wouldn't be afraid to roast me like a Thanksgiving turkey. "Initiates do our scrying because young minds are most receptive. Magicians begin training no later than the age of ten…with a few – and rare- dangerous exceptions."

"You mean us," I said.

She touched her forehead and sighed apprehensively, and I could tell that she was thinking about what the _ba _had said about me being a good king. That little tidbit of information seemed unreal, like our family being on that Blood of the Pharoahs scroll. How could I be related to some ancient kings? And even if I was, _I _certainly wasn't a king. I didn't have a kingdom, I ruled over nothing and no one, I didn't even have my own normal shoes anymore!

"They'll be waiting for you," Kisara said. "Come along."

We walked so far, Mokuba's feet began to hurt and I had to carry him on my back.

Finally we arrived at a crossroads. On the right was a massive set of bronze doors with fires blazing on either side; on the left, a twenty-foot-tall sphinx carved into the wall. A doorway nestled between its paws, but was bricked in and covered in cobwebs.

"That looks like the Sphinx at Giza," I said.

"That's because we are directly under the _real _Sphinx. That tunnel leads straight up to it. Or it was, until it was sealed off," Kisara said.

"But…" I did a few calculations in my head. "The Sphinx is twenty miles or so from the Cario airport." Kisara shrugged.

"Roughly."

"There is no way we walked that far," I said. Kisara actually smiled, and it was a little difficult to not notice how beautiful her eyes were. The shades with bits of green and purple seemed to stand out as they swirled with the other shades of blue.

"Distance changes in magic places, Seto. Surely you've learned that by now." Téa cleared her throat.

"So why is the tunnel closed?"

"The Sphinx was too popular with archeologists. Finally, in the 1980s, they discovered the first part of the tunnel under the Sphinx," Kisara said.

"I think Dad told me something about that," I said. "Wasn't the tunnel a dead end?" Kisara nodded.

"It was when we were done with it. We couldn't let the archeologists know how much their missing out on. Egypt's leading archeologists recently speculated that they'd discovered thirty percent of the ancient ruins in Egypt. In truth, they've only discovered one tenth, and not even the interesting tenth at that!"

"Isn't King Tut's tomb involved in that tenth?" I asked a little irritated. Kisara looked at me like I was crazy then raised her hand to hide a snigger.

"That boy king?" She rolled her eyes and turned her snigger into a yawn. "_Bor-ring. _If I become your training instructor I'll show you some of the _good _tombs." I felt a little hurt. I'd taken over Kaiba Corp at twelve, close to Tut's age when he'd taken the throne of Egypt. I'd always felt a sort of connection with it. If that wasn't a _good _tomb, what was?

Kisara turned to face the bronze doors.

"This is the Hall of Ages." She placed her palm against a seal, which bore the symbol of the House of Life.

The hieroglyphs began to glow, and the doors swung open.

Kisara turned to us, her expression deadly serious/

"You are about to meet the Chief Lector. Behave yourselves unless you want to become insects."

"That might be an issue for Seto," Téa said.

* * *

**Phoenix: Review and VOTE!**


	13. Chapter 13

**Phoenix: Please review. I don't know why but I've been tired and all over the place all weekend. **

* * *

**_Seto_**

The last couple of days I'd seen quite a few crazy things but the Hall of Ages took the cake.

Double rows of stone pillars held up the ceiling so high, you could've parked a blimp under it with no trouble. A shimmering blue carpet that looked like water ran down the center of the hall, which was so long, I couldn't see the end even though it was brightly lit. Balls of fire floated around like helium basketballs, changing in color whenever they bumped into one another. Millions of tiny hieroglyphic symbols also drifted through the air, randomly combining into words and then breaking apart.

I grabbed a pair of glowing red legs that walked across my palm for a moment before jumping off and dissolving like dust in the wind.

The weirdest part of the place was the displays.

I can't figure out any other word for them. Between the columns on either side of us, images shifted, coming into focus and then blurring out again like holograms in a sandstorm.

"Come along," Kisara said as she started down the hall. "And don't spend too much time looking."

That is the last thing you want to do in the Hall of Ages. The first twenty feet or so, the magical scenes cast a golden light across the hall. A blazing sun rose above an ocean. A mountain emerged from the water, and I had the feeling I was watching the beginning of the world. Giants strode across the Nile Valley: a man with black skin and the head of a jackal, a lioness with bloody fangs, a beautiful woman with wings of light.

Téa stepped off the rug. In a trance, she reached toward the images.

"Stay on the carpet!" Kisara snapped as she grabbed Téa's hand and pulled her back toward the center of the hall. "You are seeing the Age of the Gods. No mortal should dwell on these images."

"But.." Téa blinked. "They're just a bunch of pictures of animals, people and people with animal heads. Why did the gods have animal heads anyway? Didn't they know that they looked silly? And why shouldn't we see these images?" Kisara shook her head and sighed exasperated.

"As for your first two questions: The gods appear in many forms – usually fully human or fully animal, but upon occasion they'll be depicted with animal heads. They are primal forces, you understand, a sort of bridge between humanity and nature. They are depicted with animal heads to show that they exist in two different worlds at once. As for your second question: These are memories. They're so powerful they could destroy your mind."

"Oh," Téa said in a small voice.

We kept walking. The images changed to silver. I saw armies clashing – Egyptians in kilts and sandals and leather armor, fighting with spears. A tall, dark-skinned man in red-and-white armor placed a double crown on his head: Narmer, the king who united Upper and Lower Egypt. As much as I hated to say it: Téa was right. He did look like Dad.

"If I had to guess this is the Old Kingdom," I said. "The first great age of Egypt."

Kisara nodded. As we walked down the hall, we saw workers building the first step pyramid out of stone. Another few steps, and the biggest pyramid of all rose from the desert at Giza. Its outer layer of smooth white casing stones gleamed in the sun. Ten thousand workers gathered at its base and knelt before the pharaoh, who raised his hands to the sun, dedicating his own tomb.

"Khufu," I mumbled.

"The baboon?" Mokuba asked, suddenly interested.

"Actually, Khufu was the pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid," I said. "It was the tallest structure in the world for almost four thousand years when it was replaced by-"

"Fascinating," Téa said in an annoyed voice. "Right now though, I really don't care."

Another few steps and the images turned from silver to copper.

"The Middle Kingdom," Kisara said. "A bloody, chaotic time. And yet, this is when the House of Life came into maturity."

The scenes shifted more rapidly. We watched armies fighting, temples being built, ships sailing on the Nile, and magicians throwing fire. One image flashed by so fast I almost didn't see it but the shape of a double-sided axe with the Eye of Horus on its front made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Every step covered hundreds of years, and yet the Hall still went on forever. For the first time I understood just how old Egypt was.

We crossed another threshold and the light turned bronze.

"I'll take a wager on this being the New Kingdom," I said. "The last time Egypt was ruled by Egyptians."

Kisara said nothing, but I watched scenes passing that my dad had described to me: Hatshepsut, the greatest female pharaoh, putting on a fake beard and ruling Egypt as a man; Ramases the Great leading his chariots into battle.

I saw magicians dueling in a palace. A man in tattered robes with a shaggy black beard and wild eyes, threw down his staff, which turned into a serpent and devoured a dozen other snakes. I don't know why but a lump grew in my throat.

"Is that-"

"Musa," Kisara said. "Or Moshe, as his people knew him. You call him Moses. He was the only foreigner to ever defeat the House of Life in a Duel of magic." I stared at her.

"You're kidding right?" Mokuba asked. Kisara's eyes seemed to spark.

"We never kid about such an enormous humiliation."

The scene shifted again. I saw a man standing over a table of battle figurines: wooden toy ships, soldiers and chariots. The man was dressed like a pharaoh, but his face looked oddly familiar. He looked up and seemed to smile right at me. With a chill, I realized that he had the same wrinkled face as the ba, the bird-like spirit who'd challenged me on the bridge.

"Quick question," I said catching Kisara's attention. "Who is that?"

"Nectanebo II," Kisara said. "The last native Egyptian king, and the last sorcerer pharaoh. He could move entire armies, create or destroy navies by moving pieces on his board, but in the end, it was not enough."

We stepped over another line and the images shimmered blue.

"These are the Ptolemaic times," Kisara said. "Alexander the Great conquered the known world, including Egypt. He set up his general Ptolemy as the new pharaoh and founded a line of Greek kings to rule over Egypt."

The Ptolemaic section of the hall was a lot shorter and seemed sad in comparison to all the others. The temples were smaller, the kings and queens looked desperate, lazy or simply apathetic. There were no great battles…except toward the end. I saw Romans march into the city of Alexandria. I watched as woman with dark hair and a white dress dropped a snake into her blouse.

"Cleopatra," Kisara said. "She was the seventh queen to possess that name. She tried to stand against the might of Rome and she lost. When she took her life, the last line of pharaohs ended. Egypt, the greatest nation, faded. Our language was forgotten. The ancient rites were suppressed. The House of Life survived but we were forced into hiding."

We passed into an area of red light and history began to look familiar. I saw Arab armies riding into Egypt, then the Turks. Napoleon marched his armies under the shadow of the pyramids/ The British came and built the Suez Canal. Slowly Cairo grew into a modern city. And the old ruins faded farther and farther under the sand of the desert.

"Each year," Kisara began, "the Hall of Ages grows longer to encompass our history. Up until the present."

I was a little dazed, so I didn't realize that we'd reached the end of the hall until Téa grabbed my arm.

In front of us stood a dais and on it an empty throne, a gilded wooden chair with a flail and a shepherd's crook carved in the back – the ancient symbols of the pharaoh.

On the step below the throne sat the oldest man I'd ever seen. His skin was like lunch-bag paper – brown, thin and crinkled. He had a full white beard and hair and his face held the expression of a cheery old grandpa, not that I'd ever had the pleasure of seeing one. White linen robes hung loosely off his small frame. A leopard skin was draped over his shoulders and his hand shakily held a big wooden staff, which I was sure he was going to drop at any second. But weirdest of all, the glowing hieroglyphs in the air seemed to be coming _from _him. Multicolored symbols popped up all around him and floated away as if he were some sort of magic bubble machine or something.

At first I wasn't sure he was even alive. His milky eyes had a sort of light violet making the irises and he stared into space. Then he focused on me, and electricity coursed through my body.

He wasn't just looking at me though. He was scanning me – reading my entire being.

_HIDE, _something inside me said.

I didn't know where that voice came from but I knew for a fact it wasn't mine and my stomach clenched. My whole body tensed as if I was bracing for a hit and the electrical feeling subsided.

The old man raised an eyebrow as if I'd surprised him. He glanced behind him and said something in a language I didn't understand or recognize.

A second man stepped out of the shadows. My hand twitched and I suddenly wished my sword was in my grasp instead of on my back. The man was dressed in purple robes and his goatee was grey and brushed against his chest. His eyes – well, the right side one I could see – was violet. His grey hair was about shoulder-length and the way he looked at me had me wondering whether he was considering stuffing an apple in my mouth and serving me up as the main course at a luau or roasting me over a spit in his front yard. One thing, however, was clear: I did not like this guy.

The bearded man looked at my siblings and me. I felt Mokuba move to hide behind my legs.

"I am Akunadin," he said with a heavy French accent. "My master, Chief Lector Akunamkanon, welcomes you to the House of Life."

I couldn't think of anything to say when Mokuba decided to jump-start the conversation.

"He's _really _old. Why isn't he sitting on the throne?" I chocked back a chuckle. Akunadin, however didn't share Mokuba's sense of humor.

His nostrils flared, but the old man, Akunamkanon, just laughed and said something else in that other language.

"The master says thank you for noticing: he is in fact really old. But the throne is for the pharaoh. It has been vacant since the fall of Egypt to Rome. It is…_comment dit-on? _Symbolic. The Chief Lector's role is to serve and protect the pharaoh. Therefore he sits at the foot of the throne," Akunadin translated stiffly. His tone really had me wishing I'd kept my sword in hand.

I looked over at Akunamkanon a little nervously. I wondered how many years he'd been sitting on that step. "If you… If he can understand English, what language is he speaking?" Akunadin sniffed.

"The Chief Lector understands many things. But he prefers to speak Alexandrian Greek, his _birth _tongue." Téa cleared her throat.

"Sorry but did you just say his birth tongue? Wasn't Alexander the Great back in the blue section of this hall, thousands of years ago? You make it sound like Lord Akumandar-"

"Lord _Akunamkanon_," Akunadin hissed. "Show some respect girl!" My shoulder tensed and I felt my sword slip into an easy-grab area on my back. My fingers curled and uncurled like they were dying to grip the hilt again.

Something clicked in my mind: back when we'd been running from the carriers Bast had mentioned Akunamkanon and his law against summoning gods. But this couldn't be the same guy. No way. Maybe he was Akunamkanon the XXVII or something.

The old man looked me in the eyes. He smiled, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. He said something else in Greek and Akunadin translated.

"The master says not to worry. You nor your friend, Mr. Ishtar, will be blamed for the crimes of your family. At least, you three will need to be investigated."

"Thank you so much for your kind consideration," I said, trying to mask my desire to run this guy through.

"Do not mock our generosity, boy," Akunadin warned. "Your father broke our most important law once: at Cleopatra's Needle, when he tried to summon the gods and your mother died assisting him. Then his apprentice, Odion Ishtar, was foolish enough to listen to his master's radical ideas and shattered the Rosetta Stone itself. Now your uncle too is missing-"

"What's happened to Amos?" Téa asked. Akunadin glared.

"We do not know as of yet," he admitted.

"You've got to find him!" she cried. "Don't you have some sort of GPS magic or-"

"We are searching," Akunadin said. "But you cannot worry about Amos. You must stay here in order to be…_trained._" I got the feeling he didn't exactly want to say trained.

Akunamkanon spoke directly to me. His tone sounded kindly but for all I knew, he was ordering my execution.

"The master warns that the Demon Days begin tomorrow at sunset," Akunadin translated. "You must be kept safe."

"But we have to help our uncle!" Téa argued. "Dangerous gods are on the loose out there! We saw Serqet! And Set!"

At these names, Akunamkanon's expression tightened. He turned and gave Akunadin what sounded like an order. Akunadin protested and Akunamkanon repeated his statement. Akunadin clearly didn't like it, but he bowed to his master then turned to us.

"The Chief Lector wishes to hear your story."

So I told them, with Téa and Mokuba adding their two cents every now and then. The funny thing was, all three of us left out certain things without planning to. We didn't mention Téa's magic abilities, or the encounter with the _ba _who'd called me a king. It was like I literally _couldn't _say those things. Whenever I tried, the voice inside my head whispered, _Not that part. Be silent. _

When I was done, I glanced at Kisara. She said nothing but she was studying me with a troubled expression.

Akunamkanon traced a circle on the step with the butt of his staff. More hieroglyphs popped into the air and floated away.

After several second, Akunadin seemed to grow impatient. He stepped forward and glared at us.

"You are lying. That could not have been Set. He would need a powerful host to remain in this world. _Very _powerful."

"Look here you," Téa started. "I don't know what this is all about with hosts, but I saw Set with my own eyes! And if Seto saw him in Phoenix, Arizona then…" She looked at me doubtfully. "Then he's probably not crazy."

"Thanks a lot sis," I mumbled, but Téa was just getting started.

"And as for Serqet, she's real too! Our friend, my cast, Bast, died protecting us!"

"So," Akunadin said coldly, "you admit to consorting with gods. That makes our investigation much easier. Bast is not your _friend_. The gods caused the downfall of Egypt. It is forbidden to call on their powers. Magicians are sworn to keep the gods from interfering in the mortal world. We must use all our power to fight them."

"Bast said you were paranoid," Téa added.

The magician clenched his fists and the air tingled with the odd smell of ozone, like during a thunderstorm. The hairs on my neck stood up straight. Before anything could happen, Kisara stepped in front of us.

"Lord Akunadin," she said, although judging by how stiff she looked she wanted to say something much less appealing than lord, "You were at the Domino museum that night too. You saw Set as did I. And there was something strange. When I ensnared the scorpion goddess she re-formed almost instantly. I could not return her to the Duat, even with the Seven Ribbons. I could only break her hold on the host for a moment. Perhaps the rumors of other escapes-"

"What other escapes?" I asked. She glanced at me reluctantly.

"Other gods, _many _of them, released since last night from artifacts all over the world. Like a chain reaction-"

"Kisara!" Akunadin roared. "That information is not for sharing."

"Look," I said. "lord, sir, whatever – Bast warned us this would happen. She said Set would release more gods."

"Master," Kisara pleaded, "If Ma'at is weakening, if Set is increasing chaos, perhaps that is why I could not banish Serqet."

"Ridiculous," Akunadin said. "You are skilled Kisara, but perhaps you were not skilled enough for this encounter. And as for these three, the contamination must be contained!"

Kisara's face turned a little pink. She turned her attention to Akunamkanon. "Master please. Give me the chance with them."

"You forget your place," Akunadin snapped. "These three are guilty and must be destroyed!"

My jaw clenched and I felt Mokuba take hold of my clothes. I looked at Téa. If we had to make a run for it down that long hall, I didn't like our chances…

The old man finally looked up. He smiled at Kisara with true affection. For a second I wondered if she were his great-great-great granddaughter or something. He spoke in Greek and Kisara bowed deeply.

Akunadin looked ready to explode. He swept his robes away from his feet and marched behind the throne.

"The Chief Lector will allow Kisara to test you," he growled. "Meanwhile, I will seek out the truth – or the lies – in your story. You will be punished for the lies."

I turned to Akunamkanon and copied Kisara's bow, pulling my siblings down with me.

"Thank you sir," I said.

The old man studied me for a long time. Again I felt as if he were trying to burn into my soul – not in an angry way. More out of concern. Then he mumbled something and I understood two words: _Nectaneba _and _ba. _

He opened his hand and a flood of glowing hieroglyphs poured out, swarming around the dais. There was a blinding flash of light and when I could see again, the dais was empty. The two men were gone.

Kisara turned toward us, her expression grim.

"I will escort you to your quarters. In the morning, your testing begins. We will see what magic you know, and how you know it."

I wasn't sure what she meant by that, but I exchanged an uneasy look with Téa.

"Sounds like fun," she ventured. "And if we fail this test?" Kisara regarded her coldly.

"This is not the sort of test you fail, Téa Gardner. You pass or you die."

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**Phoenix: Please review and check out the profile for the poll. And I was looking through the reviews and the reason Amos is black while Téa, Seto and Mokuba are white is because their dad took more after the American wife their grandfather married while Amos took more after his father. I'm not a geneticist. See ya around.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Phoenix: Hi everyone! We've got ten months left until my anniversary and we still have 15 chapters to finish. And then there's the preview of the next Rick Riordan book I'll be doing. And now to answer some review questions. We will be seeing Yami in about five years. We'll be seeing Bakura in about ten months and Joey in about seven years. I'll be making a new crossover story for the Rick Riordan books with Mythology on each of my future anniversaries. I promise, we will see our favorite characters. And random fact about me: . **

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**_Téa_**

They took Seto and Mokuba to a different dormitory, so I don't know how they slept. But _I _couldn't get a wink.

It would've been hard enough with Kisara's comments about passing our tests or dying, but the girls' dormitory just wasn't as comfortable as Amos' mansion. The stone walls sweated with moisture. Creepy pictures of Egyptian monsters danced across the ceiling in the torchlight. I got a floating cot to sleep in and the other girls in training – _initiates _as Kisara had called them – were much younger than me so when the old dorm matron told them to go to sleep straightaway, they actually listened and obeyed. The matron waved her hand and the torches went out. She shut the door behind her and I could easily hear locks clicking. Real nice.

I was imprisoned in a nursery school dungeon.

I stared into the dark until I heard all the other girls snoring. A single thought wouldn't leave me alone: the urge I just couldn't shake. Finally I crept out of bed and pulled on my boots.

I groped over to the door and pulled on the handle. Locked, just as I'd suspected. I was tempted to kick it but I thought it would probably cause more harm to me than the door. Then I remembered what Kisara had done in the Cairo airport broom closet. I pressed my hand against the door.

_"Sahad," _I whispered.

Locks clicked and the door swung open. I grinned. Oh the blackmail tricks I could pull on my brothers with that spell. (Seto, why are you banging your head against the wall?)

Outside, the halls were almost as dark as the dormitory but way, way emptier. Apparently, there wasn't much nightlife in the First Nome. I snuck through the city back the way we'd come. The only thing that stopped me was the occasional cobra slithering across my path. Normally, I would've screamed but after the last few days the scaly thing didn't even faze me. I gave thought on trying to find Seto and or Mokuba but I wanted to do this on my own.

After our last argument in New York, I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about my brother. I'd always thought they'd had the better life; being able to travel wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Not having to worry about where their money was coming from tomorrow and not even trying to worry about going to college. And the idea that Seto was jealous of _my _life was unthinkable. Why would he want a room in an attic, being pestered into doing things the way Mom had done when she was my age. I mean, I knew of some of the things Gozaboro had done to my big brother. I'd seen some of the cuts on his arms when he'd visit me on the 4th of July and the dark lines left from a switch, but I'd never really known to what extent my brothers had suffered. And Seto called my life normal? Sure I had my friends: Joey, Tristan, Duke, Serenity, and Yugi. But if Seto made a social screw-up or met someone he didn't like, he had the ability to move on and never look at that person again. I had to stay put. I couldn't answer simple questions like "where are your parents?" or "what does your family do?" without getting in so much drama or exposing just how weird my life was. I was always different from everyone else. The girl who's mother had died when she was four, the girl with a Daddy who died a few years later, the girl in the attic, the girl who's younger and older brothers were world-known while I was struggling to be known school-wide. After a short time, one learns that blending in isn't possible. So why not bring attention on myself? Be on the dancer game in a tube top and short shorts at the arcade, get my big brother's attitude on the ideas I thought were worthwhile, get a job in a restaurant you can only work at if you're 18. I'd been called to the principal's office multiple times about my part-time job. I can't count how many times he'd threatened to call my parents and I'd replied, "Just try, you'll have to dig up their coffins first." Seto knew nothing about my life.

Enough of that. The point was, I decided to do this particular bit of exploring on my own, and after a few wrong turns, I found my way back to the Hall of Ages.

Why was I there, you may ask? I certainly didn't want to meet Monsieur Evil again or creepy old Lord Akundaris or whatever.

But I _did _want to see those images – _memories, _Kisara had called them.

I pushed open the bronze doors. Inside, the hall seemed completely deserted. No balls of fire floated around the ceiling. No glowing hieroglyphs. But images still shimmered between the columns, washing the hall with a strange, multicolored light.

I took a few nervous steps.

I wanted another look at the Age of the Gods. On our first trip through the hall, something about those images had shaken me. I know Seto thought I'd gone into a dangerous trance and Kisara had warned me about the scenes being able to melt the human mind but I had the odd feeling that she was just trying to scare me off. I felt a connection to those images, like there was some answer inside – a vital piece of info that I needed to know.

I stepped off the carpet and approached the curtain of golden light, I saw sand dunes shifting in the wind, storm clouds brewing, crocodiles sliding down the Nile. Next was a vast hall of revelers. I touched the image.

And I was in the palace of the gods.

Huge beings swirled around me, changing from human to animal to pure energy. On a throne in the center of the room sat a muscular African man in rich black robes. He had a handsome face and warm brown eyes. His hands looked strong enough to crush rocks.

The other gods celebrated round him. Music played – a sound so powerful that the air burned. At the man's side stood a beautiful woman in white, her belly was swollen as if she were several months pregnant. Her form flickered: at times she seemed to have multi-colored wings. Then she turned in my direction and I gasped. She had my mother's face.

She didn't seem to notice me. In fact, none of the gods did, until a voice behind me said, "Are you a ghost?"

I turned and saw a pretty-darn good-looking boy of about sixteen, dressed in black robes. His complexion was pale but he had incredibly beautiful chocolate-brown eyes like the man on the throne. His long black hair was long and tousled – rather wild, but it worked for me. He tilted his head, and it finally occurred to me that he'd asked me a direct question.

I tried to think of a way to answer. Excuse me? Hello? Marry me? Anything would've done. But all I could do was shake my head.

"Not a ghost eh?" he mused. "A _ba _then." He gestured towards the throne."Watch but do not interfere."

Somehow, I wasn't nearly as interested in the throne as I was in the boy, but he began to dissolve into a shadow and he disappeared, leaving me with no distractions.

"Isis," said the man on the throne. The pregnant woman next to him turned towards him and beamed.

"My lord Osiris. Happy Birthday."

"Thank you, my love. And soon we shall mark the birth of our son – Horus, the great one! His new incarnation shall be his greatest yet. He shall bring peace and prosperity to the world!"

Isis took her husband's hand. Music kept playing around them, gods celebrating, the very air swirling in a dance of creation.

Suddenly the palace doors blew open. A hot wind made the torches sputter.

A man walked into the hall. He was tall and strong, almost a twin to Osiris, but with dark red skin, blood-colored robes, and a pointed beard. He looked human except for when he smiled. The his teeth turned to fangs. His face flickered – sometimes human, sometimes strangely wolflike. I had to stifle a scream when I realized I knew that face.

The dancing stopped. The music died.

Osiris rose from his throne.

"Set," he said in a dangerous tone. "Why have you come?" Isis wrapped her arms around her swollen belly and took a hesitant step back.

Set laughed, and the tension in the room broke. Despite his cruel eyes, he had a wonderful laugh – nothing like the screeching he'd done at the museum. It was carefree and friendly, as if he couldn't possibly mean any harm.

"I came to celebrate my brother's birthday, of course!" he exclaimed. "And I bring entertainment!"

He gestured behind him. Four huge men with the heads of wolves marched into the room, carrying a jewel-encrusted golden coffin.

My heart began to race. It was the same box Set had locked Odion in.

_No! _I wanted to scream. _Don't trust him!_

But the assembled gods oohed and aahed, admiring the box, which was painted with gold and red hieroglyphs, trimmed with jade and opals. The wolf-men set down the box, and I noticed there was no lid. The interior was lined with black linen.

"This sleeping casket," Set announced, "was made by my finest craftsmen, using the most expensive materials. Its value is beyond measure. The god who lies within, even for a night, will see his powers increase tenfold! His wisdom will never falter. His strength will never fail. It is a gift" – he smiled slyly at Osiris- "for the one and _only _god who fits within perfectly!"

I wouldn't have lined up first, but the gods surged forward. They pushed each other out of the way to get at the golden coffin. Some climbed in but were too short. Others were way too big. Even when they tried to change their shapes, the gods had no luck, as if the magic of the box was thwarting them. No one fit exactly. Gods grumbled and complained as others, anxious to try, pushed them out of the way and onto the floor.

Set turned to Osiris with a good-natured laugh.

"Well, brother, we have no winner yet. Will you try? Only the best of the gods can succeed."

Osiris' eyes gleamed. Apparently he wasn't the god of brains, because he seemed completely taken by the box's beauty. All the other gods looked at him expectantly, and I could see what he was thinking: if he fit in the box, what a wonderful birthday present. Even Set, his wicked brother, would have to admit that he was the rightful king of the gods.

Only Isis seemed troubled. She laid on her husband's shoulder. "My lord, do not. Set does not bring presents."

"I am offended!" Set sounded genuinely hurt. "Can I not celebrate my brother's birthday? Are we so estranged that I cannot even apologize to the king?"Osiris smiled at Isis.

"My dear; it is only a game. Fear nothing." He rose from his throne. The gods applauded as he approached the box.

"All hail Osiris!" Set cried.

The king of the gods lowered himself into the box, and when he glanced in my direction, just for a moment, he had my father's face.

_No! _I thought again. _Don't do it! _

But Osiris lay down. The coffin fit him exactly.

A cheer went up from the gods, but before Osiris could rise, Set clapped his hands. A golden lid materialized above the box and slammed down on top of it.

Osiris must've been shouting in rage, but his cries were so muffled, they were almost drowned out by the collective gasps and cries of fear from the surrounding gods.

Golden latches fastened around the lid. The other gods surged forward to intervine – even the boy in black I'd seen earlier reappeared – but Set was faster. He stamped his foot so hard, the stone floor trembled. The gods toppled over each other like dominoes. The wolf-men drew their spears, and the gods scrambled away in terror.

Set said a magic word, and a boiling cauldron appeared out of thin air. It poured its contents over the coffin – molten lead, coating the box, sealing it shut, probably heating the interior to a thousand degrees.

"Villian!" Isis wailed. She advanced on Set and began to speak a spell, but Set held up his hand. Isis rose from the floor, clawing at her mouth, her lips pressed as if an invisible force was suffocating her.

"Not today, lovely Isis," Set purred. "Today, I am king. And your child shall never be born!"

Suddenly, another goddess – a slender woman in a blue dress – charged out of the crowd.

"Husband, no!" She tackled Set, who momentarily lost his concentration. Isis fell to the floor, gasping. The other goddess looked right at her. "Flee!" she cried.

Isis turned and ran.

Set rose. I thought he would hit the goddess in blue, but he only snarled.

"Foolish wife! Whose side are you on?"

He stamped his foot again, and the golden coffin sank into the floor.

Set raced after Isis. At the edge of the palace, Isis turned into a small bird of prey and soared into the air. Set sprouted demon's wings and launched himself in pursuit.

Then suddenly _I _was the bird. I was Isis, flying desperately over the Nile. I could sense Set behind me – closing. Closing.

_You must escape, _the voice of Isis said in my mind. _Avenge Osiris. Crown Horus king!" _

Just when I thought my heart would burst, I felt a hand on my shoulder. The images evaporated.

The old master, Akunamkanon, stood next to me, his face pinched with concern. Glowing hieroglyphs danced around him.

"Forgive the interruption," he said in perfect English. "But you were almost dead." That's when my knees turned to water, and I lost consciousness.

When I woke up, I was curled at Akunamkanon's feet on the steps below the empty throne. We were alone in the hall, which was mostly dark except for the light from the hieroglyphs that always seemed to glow around him.

"Welcome back," he said. "You're lucky you survived."

I wasn't so sure. My head felt like it had been boiled in oil.

"I'm sorry," I said."I didn't mean to-"

"Look at the images? And yet you did. Your _ba _left your body and entered the past. Hadn't you been warned?"

"Yes," I admitted. "But…I was drawn to the pictures."

"Mmm." Akunamkanon stared into space, as if remembering something from long ago. "They _are _hard to resist."

"You speak perfect English," I noticed. Akunamkanon smiled.

"How do you know I'm speaking English? Perhaps you are speaking Greek." I hoped he was just trying to kid with me. But I couldn't tell. He seemed so frail and warm, and yet… it was like sitting next to a nuclear reactor. I had a feeling he was full of more danger than I wanted to know.

"You're not really _that _old, are you?" I asked. "I mean, old enough to remember Ptolemaic times?"

"I am exactly that old, my dear. I was born during the reign of Cleopatra VII."

"Oh, please."

"I assure you, it's true. It was my sorrow to behold the last days of Egypt, before that foolhardy queen lost our kingdom to the Romans. I was the last magician to be trained before the House went underground. Many of our most powerful secrets were lost, including the spells my master used to extend my life. Magicians these days still live long – sometimes centuries – but I have been alive for two millennia."

"So, you're immortal?"

His chuckle turned into a racking cough. He doubled over and cupped his hand over his mouth. I wanted to help, but I wasn't sure how. The glowing hieroglyphs flickered and dimmed around him.

Finally the coughing subsided. He took a shaky breath.

"Hardly immortal my dear. In fact…" His voice trailed off. "But never mind that. What did you see in your vision?"

I probably should've kept my mouth shut. I didn't want to be turned into a bug for breaking any rules, and the vision had terrified me – especially the moment when I'd changed into the bird of prey. But Akunamkanon's kindly expression made it hard to hold back. I ended up telling him everything. Well, almost everything. I left out the part about the good-looking boy, and yes, I know it was silly, but I was _embarrassed. _I figured that part could've been my own crazy imagination at work, as Ancient Egyptian gods could _not _have been the gorgeous.

Akunamkanon sat for a moment, tapping his staff against the steps. "You saw a very old event Téa – Set taking the throne of Egypt by force He hid Osiris' coffin, you know, and Isis searched the entire world to find it."

"That's nice. She got him back…I mean, after a while, right?"

"Not exactly. Osiris was resurrected – but only in the Underworld. He became king of the dead. When their son, Horus, grew up, Horus challenged Set for the throne of Egypt and won after many hard battles. That is why Horus was called the Avenger. As I said – an old story, but one that the gods have repeated many times in our history."

"Repeated? Oh that's right. Seto said something like that at Brooklyn House. Didn't the Egyptians believe that Horus was their Pharaoh?" Akunamkanon nodded.

"Yes. This can be confusing for those who do not know the nature of the gods. They cannot walk on the earth in their pure form – at least, not for more than a few moments. They always must have hosts."

"You mean humans right?"

"Or powerful objects, such as statues, amulets, monuments, certain models of cars. But they prefer human hosts. You see gods have great power, but only humans have creativity, the power to change history rather than simply repeat it. Humans can…how do the young folks say it nowadays…think outside the cup."

"You mean the box," I said, trying to suppress a chuckle.

"Yes, the combination of human creativity and godly power can be quite formidable. At any rate, when Osiris and Isis first walked the earth, their hosts were brother and sister. But mortal hosts are not permanent. They die, they wear out. Later in history, Osiris and Isis took new forms – humans who were husband and wife. Horus, who in one lifetime was their brother, was born again as their son."

"That _does _seem like it can get confusing," I said. "And a tad bit gross." Akunamkanon shrugged.

"The gods do not think of relationships the way we humans do. Their hosts are merely like changes of clothes. This is why the ancient stories seem so mixed up. Sometimes the gods are described as married, or siblings, or parent and child, depending on their hosts. What your brother said about the Egyptians thinking of the pharaoh as Horus is true. But some of the greatest pharaohs were hosts for other gods, not just Horus. That falcon, war god would give them power and wisdom and let them built Egypt into a mighty empire."

"But if that's all good, then why have a law forbidding a magician from hosting a god?" Akunamkanon's face darkened and for a minute, I was afraid he'd turn me into a bug.

"The gods have different agendas than humans do, Téa. They can overpower their hosts, literally burn them out. That is why so many hosts die young. Tutankhamen, poor boy, died at nineteen. Cleopatra VII was even worse. She tried to host the spirit of Isis without knowing what she was doing and it shattered her mind. In the old days, the House of Life taught the use of divine magic. Initiates could study the path of Horus, or Isis, or Sekhmet, or any number of gods, learning to channel their powers. We had many more initiates back then." Akunamkanon looked around the empty hall, as if imagining it full of magicians. "Some adepts could call upon the gods only from time to time. Others attempted to host their spirits…with varying degrees of success. The ultimate goal was to become the 'eye' of the god – a perfect union of two souls, mortal and immortal. Very few achieved this, even among the pharaohs, who were born to the task. Many destroyed themselves trying." He turned up his palm, which had the most deeply etched lifeline I'd ever seen. "When Egypt finally fell to the Romans, it became clear to us – to me – that mankind, our rulers, even the strongest magicians, no longer had the strength of will to master a god's power. The only ones who could…" His voice faltered.

"What?"

"Nothing, my dear. I talk too much. An old man's weakness."

"It's the blood of the pharaohs, isn't it?" He fixed his gaze on me. His eyes no longer had a sort of milky, thick film over them. I could clearly see the violet in his eyes, so similar to those of my own little brother. And they burned with intensity.

"You are a remarkable young girl. You remind me so much of your mother." My mouth fell open.

"You knew my mom?"

"Of course. She trained here, as did your father along with Odion Ishtar's adoptive parents. Those four were the best of friends. Odion was even made your father's apprentice. Your mother…well, aside from being a brilliant scientist, she had the gift of divination. One of the most difficult forms of magic and she was the first in centuries to possess it."

"Divination?" I was on my toes with excitement. Finally, I was learning about my mom in a way I had never heard of before.

"Seeing the future. Tricky business, never perfect, but she saw things that made her seek advice from…_unconventional _places, things that made even _this _old man question some long-held beliefs…"

He drifted off into Memoryland again, which was a annoying enough when my grandparents did it, but when it's an all-powerful magician who has valuable information, it's enough to drive someone crazy.

"Akunamkanon!"

He looked at me with mild surprise, as if he'd forgotten I was there.

"My apologies Téa/ I should come to the point: you have a hard path ahead of you, but I'm convinced now it's a path you must take, for all our sakes. Your brothers, Seto most of all, will need your guidance." I was tempted to laugh.

"Seto, need my guidance? For what? What path do you mean?"

"All in good time. Things must take their course." Typical answer from an adult. I tried to bite back my frustration.

"And what if I need guidance?"

"Kisara," he said without hesitation. "She is my best pupil, and she is wise. When the time comes, she will know how to help you."

"Okay," I said, a bit disappointed. "Kisara."

"For now you should rest, my dear. And it seems I, too, can rest at last." He sounded sad but relieved. I didn't know what he was talking about, but he didn't give me the chance to ask.

"I am sorry our time together was so brief," he said. "Sleep well, Téa Gardner."

"But-"

Akunamkanon touched my forehead. And I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

**Phoenix: I don't know about all of you, but I'm watching Mankind: The Story of All of Us and when Akunamkanon was talking about the gods I kept imagining them walking through a dusty wind in slow motion. Kind of like at the end of an apocalypse movie when the hero and romantic interest show up when everyone thinks they're dead and all that stuff. Maybe you guys don't understand what I'm talking about but that's what I saw in my mind. Well, I have a four-day weekend, and fifteen chapters to finish. Please review guys, I really need the inspiration. Don't forget to vote on the profile!**


	15. Chapter 15

**Phoenix: Oh, man. I am so tired and cold. One of the reasons I hate winter. But…all seasons have something to hate and something to love. Personally, I cannot wait for summer when I will have all the time in the world to write, possibly finish this, get some work done on the next one before I post it and maybe even finish a couple of my other ones because yeeeeee-ikes do I have a lot of work ahead of me. Sheesh. Well, I'm going to stop rambling now. Enjoy!**

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**_Téa_**

I woke to a bucket of ice water in my face.

"Téa! Get up!" Kisara ordered.

"Good gosh! Was the necessary?!" I demanded.

"No," Kisara said coolly as she put down her bucket.

I wanted to strangle her, but I was disoriented, shivering and dripping wet. How long had I been asleep? It felt like a few minutes, but the dormitory was empty. All the other cots were made. The girls must've already gone to their morning classes.

Kisara tossed me a towel and some fresh off-white linen clothes. These were actually a shirt and pants

"We'll meet Seto and Mokuba in the cleansing room." For some reason her cheeks gained a slight pink coloration at the mention of my older brother.

"I just had a bath, thank you very much. All I need is a good breakfast."

"The cleansing prepares you for magic." Kisara slung her bag of tricks over her shoulder and unfolded the long white staff she'd used in New York. "If you survive, then we'll see about food."

To be perfectly honest, I was quite tired of being reminded I might die, but I got dressed and followed her out.

After an endless series of tunnels, we came to a chamber with a roaring waterfall. There was no ceiling, just a shaft above us that seemed to go up forever. Water fell from the darkness into a fountain, splashing over a twenty-or-so-foot-tall statue of that bird-headed god. What was his name-? Tooth? No, Thoth. The water cascaded over his head, collected in his palms and then spilled into the pool.

Seto stood next to the fountain with Mokuba drawing something in the dust. Both were dressed in linen but Seto had Dad's workbag slung over one shoulder and his sword strapped to his back. His hair was a little messy, as if he hadn't slept too well. At least he hadn't been doused in ice water. Seeing him, I felt some strange sense of relief. I thought about Akunamkanon's words from last night: Your brothers, Seto most of all, will need your guidance.

"What?" Seto demanded as Mokuba stood up. "Why are you staring at us like that?"

"Nothing," I said quickly. "How'd you sleep, Seto?" He cocked an eyebrow at me like he thought I was crazy.

"Badly. I'll…I'll tell you about it later."

Was it my imagination, or was he glancing in Kisara's direction? I couldn't identify the look so it could be anger or something else. Hmm, possible romantic trouble between Miss Magic and my brother? I made a mental note to interrogate him about the issue the next time we were without family company.

Kisara went over to a nearby cabinet. She pulled out three ceramic cups, dipped them in the fountain then offered them to us.

"Drink," she ordered. I glanced over at Seto.

"After you," I said. Seto rolled his eyes as he took a cup and drank without any indication of fear.

"It's just water," he said as he set the cup down.

"True," Kisara said. Seto looked up at her and the cups in her hands trembled from a tiny giggle that shook her shoulders. I looked over at my brother who gave me a demanding look. I shook my face and looked at the cup Kisara was offering me. "The water has been purified by contact with Thoth. It will focus your mind." I looked over at Mokuba, who shrugged. We both took a cup.

I didn't see how a statue could purify water. Then I remembered what Akunamkanon had said, how gods can inhabit anything.

I took a drink. Immediately, I felt like I'd had a good strong cup of Grandpa's coffee. My brain buzzed. My eyesight sharpened. I felt so hyperactive that I almost didn't miss talking to my friend about anything at random – almost.

Mokuba sipped from his cup.

"Wow," he said.

"Now for the tattoos," Kisara announced.

"Awesome!" I exclaimed.

"On your tongues," Kisara continued with a smirk.

"What?" Some of my enthusiasm evaporated right out of my body. Kisara stuck out her tongue. Right in the middle was a blue hieroglyphs.

"Nith ith Naat." She looked over at Seto, who looked like he was trying to bite back a chuckle. Instantly Kisara pulled her tongue back in and covered her mouth as her cheeks turned the faintest shade of pink. "I-I mean. This is Ma'at, the symbol of order and harmony. It will help you speak magic clearly. One mistake-"

"Let me guess," I interrupted. "We die."

From her cabinet of horrors, Kisara produced a fine-tipped paintbrush and a bowl of blue dye.

"It doesn't hurt and it's not permanent. Trust me, I've been through it time and time again."

"How does it taste?" Mokuba asked. Kisara smiled as she sat down, legs crossed Indian-style.

"Sit down and stick out your tongues."

When Seto did as told, it took Kisara a number of times of grabbing hold of Seto's chin and her bursting into a flurry of giggles before she finally managed to paint the tattoo onto his tongue.

To answer Mokie's question: the tattoo tasted like burning car tires. I don't know how Seto could keep a straight face while I spat a wad of "order and harmony" into the fountain.

"Forget breakfast," I said moodily. "I've lost my appetite."

Kisara pulled two leather satchels out of the cabinet.

"Seto will be allowed to keep your father's magic implements, plus a new staff and wand. Generally speaking, the wand is for defense, the staff for offense, although, Seto, you may prefer to use your _khopesh." _

_"Khopesh?" _

"The curved sword," Kisara said. "A favored weapon of the pharaoh's guard. It can be used in combat magic. As for you two, Téa and Mokuba, you will need full kits."

"How come _he _gets Dad's bag?" I complained.

"Because he's/I'm the oldest," Seto and Kisara said at the same time. Kisara burst into another flurry of giggles. If that statement explained everything, I was going to do something to my brother to make me oldest.

Kisara tossed me a lather satchel. Inside was an ivory wand, a rod I supposed turned into a staff, some paper, an ink set, a bit of twine, and a lovely chunk of wax. I was less than thrilled.

"What about a little wax man? Don't we get a Doughboy?" I said.

"If you're speaking of a figurine, you must make one for yourself. You will be taught how, if you have the skill. We will determine your specialty later."

"Specialty?" Seto said. "Like how Nectanebo specialized with statuary?" Kisara nodded in a very approving manner.

"Nectanebo was extremely skilled in statuary magic. He could make _shabti _so lifelike, they could pass for human. No one has ever been greater at statuary…except perhaps Akunamkanon. But there are many other disciplines: Healer, amulet maker, animal charmer, elementalist, combat magician, necromancer-"

"Diviner?" I asked. Kisara looked at me curiously.

"Yes," she said with hesitation, "although that is quite rare. Why do you-" I cleared my throat.

"So how do we know our specialty?"

"It will become clear soon enough," Kisara promised, "but a good magician knows a bit of everything, which is why we start with a basic test. Let's go to the library."

The First Nome's library was like Amos' but a hundred times bigger, with circular rooms lined with honeycomb shelves that seemed to go on forever, like the world's largest beehive. Clay _shabti _statues kept popping in and out, retrieving scroll canisters and disappearing, but we saw no other people.

Kisara brought us to a wooden table and spread out a long, black papyrus scroll. She picked up a stylus and dipped it in ink.

"The Egyptian word _shesh _means scribe or writer, but it can also mean magician. This is because magic, at its most basic, turns words into reality. You will create a scroll. Using your own magic, you will send power into the words on paper. When spoken, the words will unleash the magic."

She handed the stylus to Seto.

"I'm afraid I'm still trying to grasp the idea."

"A simple word," she suggested as she took a seat right on the table. "It can be anything."

"In English?" Kisara licked her lip.

"If you must. Any language will work, but hieroglyphics are best. They are the language of creation, of magic, of Ma'at. You must be careful, however."

Before she could explain, Seto drew a simple hieroglyph of a bird.

The picture wriggled, peeled itself off the papyrus and flew away. It splattered Seto's head with some hieroglyphic bird poop on its way out. I couldn't help laughing at how ridiculous Seto looked.

"A beginner's mistake," Kisara said, scowling at me to be quiet. "If you use a symbol that stands for something alive, it is best to write it only partially – leave off a wing or the legs. Otherwise the magic you channel could make it come alive."

"And poop on its creator," Seto sighed, wiping off his hair with a piece of scrap papyrus. "That's why Doughboy has no legs right?" Kisara looked confused. "It's the wax statue that belonged to our Dad."

"It's the same principle," Kisara agreed. "Now try again."

Seto stared at Kisara's staff, which was covered in hieroglyphics. He picked one of the most obvious ones and copied it on the papyrus – the symbol for fire.

_"Uh-oh," _I thought. But the word did not come alive, which would've been a bit excited. It simply dissolved.

"Keep trying," Kisara urged.

"Why am I so tired?" Seto breathed. He definitely looked exhausted. His face was beaded with sweat.

"You're channeling magic from within," Kisara said. "For me, lightning-fire is easy. But it may not be the most natural kind of magic for you. Try something else. Summon…summon a sword."

Kisara got closer to Seto, still sitting on the table. She showed him how to form the hieroglyph, and Seto wrote it on the papyrus. Nothing happened.

"Try speaking it," Kisara encouraged.

"Sword," Seto said. The word glowed and vanished, and a butter knife lay on the papyrus. I laughed.

"Ahhh! The horror!" Seto looked just about ready to pass out, but he managed a smirk. He picked up the knife and poked me in the stomach with it.

"That is actually extremely good for a first try," Kisara said. "Remember, you are not creating the knife yourself. You are summoning it from Ma'at – the creative power of the universe. Hieroglyphs are the code we use. That's why they're called Divine Words. The more powerful the magician, the easier it becomes to control the language." I caught my breath.

"Those hieroglyphs floating in the Hall of Ages. They seemed to gather around Akunamkanon. Was he summoning them?"

"Not exactly," Kisara said. "His presence is so strong, he makes the language of the universe visible simply by being in the room. No matter what our specialty, each magician's greatest hope is to become a speaker of the Divine Words – to know the language of creation so well that we can fashion reality simply by speaking, not using a scroll."

"Like saying _shatter,_" I ventured. "And having a door explode." Kisara scowled.

"Yes, but such a thing would take years of practice."

"really? Well-"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Seto glare and shake his head, warning me to keep my mouth shut.

"Um…" I stammered. "Someday, I'll learn to do that." Kisara raised an eyebrow.

"First, master the scroll."

I was getting tired of her know-it-all attitude, so I picked up the stylus and wrote _Fire _in English. Kisara leaned forward and frowned.

"You shouldn't-"

Before she could finish, a column of golden flames erupted in her face. I screamed, sure I'd done something horrible, but when the fire died, Kisara was still there, looking astonished, her bangs were smoldering and a piece in front of her eyes on fire.

"Oh gosh!" I said. "Sorry, sorry. Do I die now?" For three heartbeats, Kisara stared at me. Then she licked her fingers and put out the fire in her hair.

"Now," she announced. "I think you are ready to duel."

* * *

We used another magic gateway, which Kisara summoned right on the library wall. We stepped into a circle of swirling sand and popped out the other side, covered in dust and grit, in front of some ruins. The harsh sunlight almost blinded me.

"I hate portals," Seto muttered, brushing the sand out of his hair. Then he looked around and his eyes widened. "This is Luxor! That's about 447 miles from Cairo." I sighed.

"And that amazed you after teleporting from New York?"

He was too busy checking out our surroundings to answer. I was about to point out he should've been here at least a few times with Gozaboro, when what he'd said at the New York museum stopped me.

I suppose the ruins were all right, though once you've seen one pile of crumbly Egyptian stuff, you've seen them all, I say. We stood on a wide avenue flanked by human-headed beasties, most of which were broken. The road went on behind us as far as I could see, but in front of us it ended at a temple much bigger than the one in the New York museum.

The walls were at least six stories high. Big stone pharaohs stood on guard on either side of the entrance, and a single obelisk stood on the left-hand side. It looked as if one used to stand on the right as well, but now it was gone.

"Luxor is a modern name," Kisara said. "This was once the city of Thebes. This temple was one of the most important in Egypt. It is the best place for us to practice."

"Because its already destroyed?" I said.

Kisara gave me a scowl that so mirrored my brother's when he was annoyed with me, it almost scared me.

"No Téa – because it is still full of magic. And it was sacred to your family."

"Our family?" Seto asked. Kisara didn't explain, as usual. She just gestured for us to follow her.

"I don't like those ugly sphinxes," I mumbled as was walked down the path.

"Those ugly sphinxes are creatures of law and order," Kisara said. "Protectors of Egypt. They are on our side."

"If you say so."

Seto nudged me as we passed the obelisk. "You know the missing one is in Paris."

I rolled my eyes.

"Thank you Mr. Wikipedia. I thought they were in New York and London."

"That's a different pair," Seto said, like I was supposed to care. "The other Luxor obelisk is in Paris."

"Wish I was in Paris," I said. "It would be a lot better than this place."

We walked into a dusty courtyard surrounded by crumbling pillars and statues with various missing body parts. Still, I could tell the place had once been quite impressive.

"Where are the people?" I asked. "Middle of the day, Christmas break. Shouldn't there be loads of tourists?" Kisara made a distasteful expression.

"Usually, yes. I have encouraged them to stay away for a few hours."

"How?"

"Common minds are easy to manipulate." She looked pointed at me, and I remembered how she'd forced me to talk in the museum back in New York. Oh, yes, she was just _begging _for more burned bangs.

"Now to the duel." She summoned her staff and drew two circles in the sand about thirty feet apart. She directed me to stand in one and Seto in the other.

"I've got to duel _him_?" I asked.

I found the idea completely unbelievable. The only thing Seto had shown any real skin for was summoning butter knives and pooping birds. Well, all right, and that bit about the chasm bridge deflecting the daggers, but still – what if I hurt him? As annoying as my brothers could be, I didn't want to accidentally summon that glyph I'd made in Amos' house and explode him into bits.

Perhaps Seto was thinking the same thing, because he looked like he'd started to sweat.

"What if we do something wrong?" he asked.

"I will oversee the duel with Mokuba," Kisara promised. "We will start slowly. The first magician to knock the other out of his or her circle wins. Then they'll face Mokuba." My baby brother looked at her like she was absolutely crazy. He hadn't even shown any signs of being able to use magic whatsoever.

"But we haven't been trained!" I protested.

"One learns by doing," Kisara said, sounding rather annoyed. "This is not school, Téa. You cannot learn magic by sitting at a desk and taking notes like a child. You can only learn magic by doing magic.

"But-"

"Summon whatever power you can," Kisara said. "Use whatever you have available. Begin!"

I looked at Seto unbelievably.

"_Use whatever I have?" _I opened the leather satchel and looked inside. A lump of wax? Probably not? I drew the wand and rod. Immediately, the rod expanded until a white staff almost as tall as Seto was in my hand.

Seto drew his sword, though I doubted it would do much good at our distance.

I wanted this over, so I raised my staff the way I'd seen Kisara do. I thought of the word _Fire. _

A small flame sputtered to life on the end of the staff. I willed it to get bigger. The fire momentarily brightened, but then my vision clouded. The flame died and I fell to my knees. I hadn't felt this tired since Grandpa had forced me to run a triathlon with him when I was younger.

"Are you okay?!" I heard Mokuba yell.

"No," I complained.

"If she knocks herself out, do I win?" Seto asked.

"Shut up!" I yelled.

"Téa, you must be more careful!" Kisara scolded. You drew from your own reserves, not from the staff. You can quickly deplete your magic." I shakily got to my feet.

"Can you clear that up please?"

"A magician begins a duel full of magic, the way you might be full after a good meal-"

"Which I never got," I reminded her.

"Each time you do magic," Kisara continued, "you expend energy. You can drew energy from yourself, but you must know your limits. Otherwise you could exhaust yourself, or worse." I swallowed hard and looked at my smoldering staff. I was hesitant but…I had to ask.

"How much worse?" Kisara fixed her eyes on me in a way that reminded me of Grandma scolding me for tearing my best dress when I was six.

"You could literally burn up." I hesitated again, thinking about how to ask my next question without saying too much.

"But I've done magic before. Sometimes it doesn't exhaust me. Why?"

From around her neck, Kisara pulled off her white dragon pendant. She threw it into the air, and in a flash of white light it turned into a dragon probably fifty thousand times bigger than its necklace form. I noticed it had blue eyes. The massive reptile soared over the ruins. As soon as it was out of sight, Kisara extended her hand and the pendant appeared in her palm.

"Magic can be drawn from many sources," she said. "It can be stored in scrolls, wands, or staffs. Amulets are especially powerful. Magic can also be drawn straight from Ma'at, using the Divine Words, but it is difficult. Or" –she locked eyes with me- "it can be summoned by the gods."

"Why are you looking at me?" I demanded. "I haven't summoned any gods! They just seem to like finding me!" She put her necklace on but said nothing.

"Hold on a minute," Seto said. "You claimed that this place was sacred to our family."

"It was," Kisara agreed.

"But wasn't this…" Seto scratched his neck as if trying to remember. "Didn't the pharaohs have an annual festival here or something?"

"Indeed," she agreed. "The pharaoh would walk down the processional path all the way from Karnak to Luxor. He would enter the temple and become one with the gods. Sometimes, this was purely ceremonial. Sometimes, with the great pharaohs like Ramesses here-" Kisara pointed to one of the huge crumbling statues.

"They actually hosted gods." I interrupted, remembering what Akunamkanon had said. Kisara narrowed her eyes.

"And yet you claim to know nothing of your ancestral history."

"Wait a second," Seto protested. "You're saying that we're related to-"

"The gods choose their hosts carefully," Kisara said. "They always prefer the blood of the pharaohs. When a magician has the blood of two royal families…"

I exchanged looks with Seto. Something Bast had said came back to me: "Your parents were very powerful magicians, saying that their bloodlines had been loved by the gods and in the House of Life for generations. A bad feeling settled in my gut like a rock had been thrown there.

"Our parents were from different royal lines," I said. "Dad…he must've been descended from Narmer, the first pharaoh. I told you they looked alike in that picture!"

"That's impossible," Seto said. "That was five thousand years ago." But I could see his mind was racing. "Then Mom must've been…" He turned to Kisara. "Ramesses the Great built this place. You're telling us that our mother was his descendant?" Kisara sighed.

"Don't tell me your parents kept this from you. Why do you three think the House saw you as such a threat?"

"You think we're hosting gods," I said, absolutely stunned. "That's what you're so worried about – just because of something our great-times-a-thousand grandparents did? That's so stupid! It's like Seto being blamed for all the deaths Gozaboro Kaiba's war machines caused!" In the corner of my eye, I saw Seto flinch.

"Then prove it!" Kisara ordered. "Duel, and show me just how weak your magic is!" She turned her back on us as if we had lost all importance. Mokuba looked at us, shell-shocked by what he'd just discovered. This was a lot to put on an 11-year-old's shoulders. But that didn't stop my being angry at Kisara.

Something inside me snapped. I'd had the worst two days ever. I'd lost a friend, my home, my cat, been attacked by monsters and had ice water dumped on my head. Now this _witch _was turning her back on us. She didn't want to train us. She wanted to see just how dangerous we were.

Well, fine.

"Téa," Seto called. Something like a warning laced his voice. He must've seen by my expression that I wasn't going to listen to anyone until I'd vented. Normally I'd go down to the arcade or the nearest DDR game but I wasn't anywhere familiar.

I focused on my staff. _"Maybe not fire. Cats have always liked me. Maybe…" _I threw my staff right at Kisara. Mokuba leapt and rolled out of the way as the shaft of wood hit the ground at her heels and turned into a snarling she-lion. Kisara whirled in surprise, but then it went wrong.

The lion turned and charged at Seto, as if she knew I was dueling him.

I had a split second to think: _"What have I done?" _

Then the cat lunged.

"Seto!" Mokuba called. Kisara stepped forward, staff raised…and Seto's form flickered. He rose off the ground, surrounded by a golden holographic shell like the one Bast had used, except this one had the head of a falcon instead of a cat. Seto swung his sword, and the falcon-warrior did the same, slicing the lion with a shimmering blade of energy. The cat dissolved in midair, and my staff clattered to the ground, cut neatly in half.

Seto's avatar shimmered, then disappeared. He dropped to the ground and smirked.

"Fun," he said. He didn't even look tired. Once I got over my initial relief that I hadn't killed him, I realized I didn't feel tired either. If anything I had _more _energy.

I turned defiantly to Kisara.

"Well? Better right?" Her face was ashen.

"The falcon. He – he summoned-" Before she could finish, footsteps pounded on the stones. A young initiate raced into the courtyard, looking panicked. Tears streaked his dusty face. He said something to Kisara in hurried Arabic. When Kisara got his message, she sat down hard in the sand. She covered her face and began to tremble.

Seto and I left our dueling circles and ran to her. Mokuba hid behind me as we neared.

"Kisara?" Seto said. "What's wrong?" The white-haired girl took a deep breath, trying to gather her composure. When she looked up, her eyes were tinged red. She said something to the adept, who nodded and ran back the way he'd come.

"News from the First Nome," she said shakily. "Akunamkanon…" Her voice broke.

The rock in my gut feeling came back again. I thought about Akunamkanon's strange words last night: _It seems I too can rest at last. _

"He's dead, isn't he? That's what he meant." Kisara stared at me.

"What do you mean: 'That's what he meant'?"

"I…" I was about to say that I'd spoken with Akunamkanon the night before. Then I realized that it may not be a good thing to say at the moment. "Nothing. How did it happen?"

"In his sleep," Kisara said. "He –he had ailing for years, of course. But still…"

"It's alright," Seto said, using a voice I'd only ever heard him use when he was trying to comfort Mokuba. "I know he was important to you."

_"What's gotten into him? What's with the sudden character change?" _I thought.

Kisara wiped her tears, then rose unsteadily.

"You don't understand. Akunadin is next in line. Once he is named Chief Lector, he will order you executed." Mokuba squeaked.

"But we haven't done anything?!" he insisted. Kisara's eyes flashed with anger.

"You still don't realize how dangerous you are? You, Téa, and your brother are hosting gods!"

"That's ridiculous!" I insisted, but an uneasy feeling was building inside me. If it were true…no, it couldn't be! Besides, how could anyone, even a bad-tempered old man like Akunadin, seriously execute children for something they weren't even aware of?

"He will order I bring you in," Kisara warned, "and I will have no choice but to obey."

"You can't!" Seto yelled. "You saw what happened at the museum. We're no the problem, Set is! And if Akunadin doesn't and isn't taking that seriously…well, then maybe he's part of the problem too!" Kisara gripped her staff. I was sure she'd turn us into lightning-fried ash heaps in the sand, but she hesitated.

"Kisara," I said, taking a huge risk. "Akunamkanon talked with me last night. He caught me sneaking around the Hall of Ages." She looked at me in expecting shock. I probably only had second before I became that ash pile. "He said you were his best pupil," I recalled. "He said you were wise. He also said Seto and I have a difficult path ahead of us, and you would know how to help us when the time came."

Her staff smoldered and the air around her reeked of ozone. Her eyes reminded me of glass about to shatter.

"Akunadin will kill us," I finished, placing a hand on Mokuba's arm. "Do you think that's what Akunamkanon would have wanted?"

I counted to five, six, seven. Just when I was sure she was going to blast us, she lowered her staff.

"Use the obelisk."

"What?" I said.

"The one at the entrance, you foolish girl! You have five minutes, perhaps less, before Akunadin orders for your execution. Flee, and destroy Set. The Demon Days begin at sundown. All portals will stop working. You need to get as close as possible to Set before that happens."

"Hold on," I said. "I meant you should come with us! We can't even use an obelisk, much less destroy Set."

"I cannot betray the House," she said. "You have four minutes now. If you can't operate the obelisk, you'll die."

That was enough incentive for me. Seto grabbed my arm as I took a harder grip on Mokuba's and started dragging us after him.

"Téa!" Kisara called. I slipped out of Seto's grip and turned to her, letting Mokuba run. The white-haired girl was biting her lip and fiddling with her pendant. Her eyes were brimming with tears and some were streaking her dusty face. "Akunadin will order me to hunt you down. Do you understand?"

Unfortunately, I did. The next time we met, we would be enemies.

I ran after my brothers.

* * *

**Phoenix: I was planning to have three more chapters done by today. But I got distracted. The weather is going to be getting worse around here. And I personally hope to use four of my five snow days this week. The temperatures are supposed to be under 20 all week long. And I just started helping out another author with their story so I might not be updating as often as I normally would. Please review and vote!**


	16. Chapter 16

**_Seto _**

* * *

Okay, before I get to the demon fruit bats, it's probably best if I backed up a little.

The night before we fled Luxor, sleep eluded me – first because of an out-of-body experience, then a run-in with Kisara. (Stop smiling Téa, it wasn't a _good_ run-in. What are you looking at me like that for?)

After lights out, I tried to sleep. I even used that stupid headrest they gave me instead of the pillow but that didn't help at all. The second I had my eyes shut my Baa decided it would be a wonderful idea to take a little trip.

Just like before, I felt myself floating above my body, taking on the winged form. (Téa, stop calling it the Blue-Eyes Seto Chicken!) Then the current of the Duat swept me away at blurring speed. When my vision cleared, I found myself in a dark cavern. Uncle Amos was sneaking through it, finding his way with a faint blue light that flickered in the top of his staff. I wanted to call to him, but my voice didn't work. I'm not sure how he could miss me, floating a few feet away in glowing chicken form, but apparently I was invisible to him.

He stepped forward and the ground at his feet suddenly blazed to life with a red hieroglyph. Amos cried out, but his mouth froze half open. Coils of light wrapped around his legs like vines. Soon red tendrils completely entwined him, and Amos stood petrified, his unblinking eyes staring straight ahead.

I tried to fly to him but I was stuck in place, floating helplessly, so I could only observe.

Laughter echoed through the cavern. A horde of _things _emerged from the darkness – toad creatures, animal-headed demons, and even stranger monsters half-hidden in the gloom. They'd been hiding in ambush, I realized – waiting for Amos. In front of the appeared a fiery silhouette – Set, but his form was much clearer now, and this time it wasn't human. His body was emaciated, slimy, and black and his head was that of a fearl beast.

_"Bon soir, _Amos," Set said. "How nice of you to come. We're going to have _so _much fun!"

I sat bolt upright in my bed, back in my own body, with my heart pounding.

Amos had been captured. I knew it was certain. And even worse…Set had somehow _known _that my uncle – my only living member of family that actually cared besides my siblings – was coming. My mind reeled back to something Bast had said about the serpopards breaking the house's defenses too easily, how the defenses had been sabotaged. How only a magician of the House could've done it. A horrible suspicion started building inside me.

I stared into the darkness for a long time, listening to Mokuba snoring next to me. Apparently, he'd crawled out of his cot and into mine. When I couldn't take it any longer, I opened the door with a push of my mind, the way I'd done at Amos' mansion, and I snuck out.

I was wandering through the empty marketplace, thinking about Odion and Amos, replaying the events in my mind, trying to think of something I'd overlooked, something I could've –should've – done differently to save them when I spotted Kisara.

She was hurrying across the courtyard as if she were being chased, but what actually caught my attention what the shimmering black cloud around her, as if someone had wrapped her in a cloak made of the ocean in the moonlight. She came to a section of blank wall and waved her hand. Suddenly a doorway appeared. Kisara glanced nervously behind her and ducked inside.

Of course I followed.

I moved quietly up to the doorway. I could hear Kisara's voice inside but I couldn't make out what she was saying. The doorway began to solidify, turning back into a wall and I made a split-second decision. I pumped through.

Inside, Kisara was alone with her back to me. She was kneeling at a stone altar, chanting something under her breath. The walls were decorated with ancient Egyptian drawings and modern photographs.

The shadow was no longer around Kisara's shoulders, but something even stranger was happening. I'd been planning to tell her about my nightmare, but that went completely out of my mind when I saw what she was doing. She cupped her palms together, the way one would to hold a small bird, and a glowing blue sphere appeared, about the size of a golf ball. Still chanting, she raised her hands. The sphere flew up, straight through the ceiling and vanished.

Some instinct told me this was _not _something I was supposed to see.

I thought about backing out of the room. Only problem was the door was gone. No other exits. It was only a matter of time before-

"_Uh-oh," _I thought.

Maybe I'd made a noise. Maybe her magical senses had kicked in. But faster than I could react, Kisara pulled out her wand and turned on me, blue fire mixed with random sparks of lightning dancing on the edge of the boomerang.

"Hello," I said nervously.

Her expression changed from anger to surprise, then back to anger.

"Seto, what are you doing here?"

"I was just walking around and I saw you in the court yard, so-"

"What do you mean you saw me?"

"Well…you were running, and you had this sort of shimmery shadow stuff around you, and-"

"You _saw _that? Impossible."

"And just how exactly is that impossible?" Kisara dropped her wand and the fire died.

"I don't exactly appreciate being followed, Seto."

"Well, my apologies. I thought you might be in some kind of trouble." She started to say something, but apparently changed her mind.

"In trouble…that's true enough."

She sat down heavily and sighed. In the candlelight, her blue eyes seemed to take on a darker, sadder appearance.

She stared at the photos behind the altar, and I realized she was in some of them. There she was as a little girl, standing barefoot outside a mud brick house, squinting resentfully at the camera as if she didn't want her picture taken. Next to that, a wider shot showed a whole village on the Nile – the kind of place my dad had described going to when he barely knew my mom. It was one of those places that looked like nothing had changed much in the last two thousand years. A crowd of villagers grinned and waved at the camera as if they were celebrating, and above them a little Kisara rode on the shoulders of a man who must've been her father. Another photo was a family shot: Kisara holding hands with her mother and father. The father could've been from any _fellahin _family anywhere in Egypt. He had had kindly, twinkling blue eyes – he probably had a good sense of humor. Her mom was unveiled, showing she was albino and she was laughing as if her husband had just cracked a good joke.

"Your folks look like they're pretty nice," I said. "Is this home?"

Kisara seemed like she wanted to get angry, but she kept her emotions under control. Or maybe she just didn't have the energy.

"It _was _my home. The village no longer exists."

I waited, not sure if I should ask. We locked eyes and I could tell she was deciding just how much to tell me.

"My father was a farmer," she said, "but he also worked for archaeologists. In his spare time he'd scour the desert for artifacts and new sites where they might want to dig."

I nodded. What Kisara described wasn't uncommon. Egyptians have been making extra money that way for centuries.

"One night, when I was eight, my father found a statue," she said. "Small but very rare: a statue of a monster, carved from red stone. It had been buried in a pit with a lot of other statues that were all smashed. Somehow this one survived. He brought it home. He didn't know…He didn't realize that magicians imprison monsters and spirits inside such statues, then break them to destroy their essence. My father brought the unbroken statue into our village, and…and accidentally unleashed…"

Her voice cracked and she clamped her hands over her mouth as she stared at the picture of her father smiling and holding her hand.

"Kisara, I'm sorry," I heard myself say. She knit her eyebrows.

"Akunamkanon found me. He and the other magicians destroyed the monster…but not in time. They found me curled in a fire pit under some reeds where my mother had hidden me. I was the only survivor."

I tried to imagine how Kisara must've looked when Akunamkanon found her – a little girl who'd just lost everything, alone in the ruins of her village. It was hard to imagine her in anyway like that.

"So this room is a shrine to your family. Nice. My grandparents have a similar thing going on in one of their cupboards for my mom. Kinda creeps me and my siblings out," I said. Kisara arched an eyebrow at me.

"Your point?" she asked.

"What I mean is you come here to remember them right?"

Kisara gave me a blank look.

"That's one of the problems, Seto. I _can't _remember. Akunamkanon tells me about my past. He gave me these pictures, explained what happened. But…I have no memory at all."

I was about to say, "You were only eight." Then I realized that I had been a year younger when I lost my own mother, when Téa was taken away from us and it had just been Dad, Mokuba and me. And I remembered all of it so clearly. I could still see our house in Domino City and the way the stars looked at night from our back porch overlooking the park. My dad would tell us vivid stories about the constellations. Then every night before bed, Téa and I would cuddle up with Mom on the sofa, fighting for her attention, and she'd tell us not to believe a word of Dad's stories. She'd explain the science behind the stars, talk about physics and chemistry as if we were her college students. Looking back, a part of me wondered if she'd been trying to warn us: Don't believe in those gods and myths. They're too dangerous.

I remembered the last time I'd seen my mother, how nervous she and Dad seemed in the car as they drove to our grandparents' for the night. I remembered our dad coming back alone after Mom died and saying there'd been an accident. Even before he'd explained, I knew it was bad, because never once had I ever seen him, or would I ever again, see my father cry.

The little details that did fade drove me crazy as I tried to remember them – like the smell of Mom's perfume or the way her voice sounded. The older I got, the harder I held on to those things. I couldn't imagine not remembering anything. How could Kisara stand it?

"Maybe…" I struggled to find the right words. I'd never exactly had the best or easiest time talking to girls. "Maybe you just-" She held up her hand.

"Seto, believe you me. I've tried to remember. It's no use. Akunamkanon is the only family I've ever had."

"What about friends?" (Yes Téa, I know that sounds more like you than me now zip it!)

Kisara stared at me as if I'd just spoken in Japanese. I realized I hadn't seen any kids besides myself, my siblings and the initiates who couldn't be older than ten.

"I don't have time for friends," she said. "Besides when initiates turn thirteen they're assigned to other nomes around the world. I am the only one who stayed here. I like being alone. It's fine."

The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I'd said the same thing everytime I'd been asked what it was like being Gozaboro Kaiba's son. Didn't I want to attend regular school? Didn't I want a normal life? "I like being alone. It's fine." _Yea, right. _

I tried to picture Kisara going to my sister's high school, learning a locker combination, hanging out in the cafeteria. I couldn't picture it. I imagined she would be as lost as I would.

"Tell you what," I said. "After the testing, after the Demon Days, when things settle down-"

"Thing's won't settle down."

"-I'm going to take you to the mall." Kisara blinked. I was also a little baffled by my choice of words.

"The mall? For what reason?"

"Just to hang out," I said, unsure of what to say myself. "We'll get some burgers. See a movie. I mean, isn't that what normal teenagers do at malls?" Kisara hesitated.

"Is this what is typically called a 'date?'" My expression must've been priceless, because Kisara actually cracked a smile and covered her mouth a nose with a snort. "You look like a cow hit with a shovel."

"I didn't…I just meant…"

She laughed, and suddenly it was easier to see her in the same uniform my sister wears to school, being with her and her little group of friends at the lunch table, playing a few games. And she actually looked pretty cute in that little white button-down shirt with a pink jacket and bow around her neck and a short blue skirt. (Stop looking at me like that Téa! I'm a teenage boy what do you expect?!)

"I will look forward to this 'mall' Seto," she said. "You are either a very interesting person…or a very dangerous one."

"I'd put my vote in for interesting." Kisara waved her hand and the door reappeared.

"Go now. And be careful. The next time you sneak up on me, I may not be as hesitant as I was tonight."

At the doorway, I turned.

"Kisara, what was that shadow-like stuff?" Her smile faded.

"An invisibility spell. Only very powerful magicians are able to see through it. You should not have." She stared at me for answers but I had none.

"Maybe it was wearing off," I managed. "And, if I may, what about the blue sphere?"

"The what?" she said with a frown.

"The thing you released that went into the ceiling." She looked mystified.

"I…I don't know what you mean. Perhaps the candlelight was playing tricks on your eyes.

Awkward silence. Either she was lying to me, or I was going crazy. The latter seemed most likely. I realized I hadn't told her about my vision of Amos and Set, but I felt that I'd already pushed her as far as I could for one night.

"Okay," I said. "Good night."

I made my way back to the dorm, but didn't get to sleep again for a long time.

Fast-forward to Luxor. Maybe now you understand why I didn't want to leave Kisara behind, and why I didn't believe Kisara would actually hurt us.

On the other hand, I knew she wasn't lying about Akunadin. That guy wouldn't think twice about turning three kids into escargots. And the fact that Set had spoken French in my dream – _"Bon soir, _Amos – Was that just a coincidence…or was something a _lot _worse going on?

Anyway, when Téa tugged on my arm, I followed.

We ran out of the temple and headed for the obelisk. But naturally, it wasn't that easy. We're the Gardner family. Nothing is ever that simple for us.

Just as we reached the obelisk, I heard a _slish_-ing sound of a magic portal. About a hundred yards down the path, a bald magician in white robes stepped out of a whirling sand vortex.

"Hurry," I told Téa. I grabbed the staff-rod from my bag and threw it to her. "Since I cut yours in half. I'll stick with the sword."

"But I have no idea what I'm doing!" she protested, searching the obelisk's base as if she hoped to find a secret switch.

The magician regained his balance and spit sand out of his mouth. Then he spotted us.

"Stop!" he roared.

"Yeah," I muttered. "That's gonna happen."

"Paris." Téa turned to me. "You said the other obelisk is in Paris right?"

"Right," Mokuba said.

"Not to rush you sis, but…"

The magician raised his staff and started chanting.

I fumbled for the hilt of my sword. My legs felt like they were turning to butter. I wondered if I could pull off that hawk warrior thing again. That had been pretty spectacular, but it had also been just a duel. And the test at the chasm bridge, when I'd deflected those daggers, that hadn't seemed like _me. _Every time I'd drawn the sword so far I'd had help. Kisara had been there or Bast. I'd never felt completely alone. This time, it was just me. I was crazy to think I could hold against a full-fledged magician. I was no warrior. Everything I knew about swords (other than fencing) came from reading books – the history of Alexander the Great, _The Three Musketeers – _as if that could help! With Téa occupied at the obelisk and Mokuba clinging to her legs, I was on my own.

_No you're not,_ said a voice inside me.

_"Great," _I thought. "_I'm on my own and going crazy." _At the far end of the avenue, the magician called out: "Serve the House of Life!"

But I had that feeling that he wasn't talking to me.

The air between us began to shimmer. Waves of heat flowed from the double lines of sphinxes, making them look as if they were moving. Then I realized that they _were _moving. Each one cracked down the middle, and ghostly apparitions appeared from the stone like locusts breaking out of their shells. Not all of them were in good shape. The spirit creatures from broken statues had missing heads or feet. Some limped along on only three legs. But at least a dozen attack sphinxes were in perfect condition, and they came toward us – each of them the size of a Doberman, made of milky-white smoke and hot vapor. So much for the sphinxes being on our side.

I heard Mokuba yell behind me.

"Soon!" I warned Téa/

"Paris!" she called, and raised her staff and wand. "I want to go there _now._ Three tickets. First-class would be nice!"

The sphinxes advanced. The nearest one launched itself towards me and with sheer luck, I managed to slice it in half. The monster evaporated into smoke, but it let out a blast of heat so intense I thought my face was going to melt clean off.

Two more sphinx ghosts loped toward me. A dozen more were only a few steps behind. I could feel my pulse pounding in my neck.

Suddenly the ground shook. The sky darkened and Téa yelled, "Yes!"

The obelisk glowed with purple light, humming with power. Téa touched the stone a yelped. She was sucked inside and disappeared with Mokuba right behind her.

"Mokuba! Téa!" I yelled.

In my moment of distraction, two of the sphinxes slammed into me, knocking me to the ground. My sword skittered away. My rib cage went _crack _and my chest exploded in pain. The heat coming off the creatures was unbearable – it was like being crushed under a hot oven.

I stretched out my fingers toward the obelisk. Just a few inches too far. I could hear the other sphinxes coming, the magician chanting, "Hold him! Hold him!"

With my last bit of strength, I lurched toward the obelisk, every nerve in my body screaming in agony. My fingertips touched the base, and the world went black.

Suddenly I was lying on cold wet stone. I was in the middle of a huge public plaza. Rain was pouring down, and the chilly air told me I was no longer in Luxor or Egypt. Téa and Mokuba were somewhere close by, yelling in alarm.

The bad news: I'd brought the two sphinxes with me. One jumped off me and bounded after my siblings. The other was still on my chest, glaring down at me, its back steaming in the rain, its smooth white eyes inches from my face.

I tried to remember the Egyptian word for _fire. _Maybe if I set the monster on fire…but my mind was too full of panic. I heard an explosion off to my right, in the direction my siblings were in. I hoped they'd gotten away but I couldn't be sure.

The sphinx opened its mouth and formed smoky fangs that had no business on an Ancient Egyptian king. It was about to chomp my face when a dark form loomed behind it.

"_Mange des muffins!" _the figure shouted.

_SLICE! _

The sphinx dissolved into smoke.

I tried to rise but I couldn't. Téa and Mokuba stumbled over.

"Seto!" Mokuba called.

"Oh gosh, are you alright?" Téa screeched.

I blinked at the other person – the one who had saved me: a tall, thin figure in a black hooded raincoat. What had she yelled? _Eat muffins? _What kind of battle cry was that?

She threw off her coat, and a woman in a leopard-skin acrobatic suit grinned down at me, showing off her fangs and her lamplike yellow eyes.

"Miss me?" asked Bast.

* * *

**Phoenix: I want to dedicate this chapter to my math teacher, Miss Housos, who is getting married today! Congratulations to Miss Housos and her new husband and I hope you have long happy lives together. Please review!**


	17. Chapter 17

**Phoenix: Last night I got a review on this story. It asked me about why I haven't updated again. Well there is a reasonable explanation for this. My tablet, an Andriod, broke down after about two weeks and I lost the charger so I did what I could using scribd but recently, I can't find the chapter I need to work on. Don't get me wrong, I am not giving up on this story but without my material I can't do much. Now some of you may ask Why not use the library? Well another good reason: My family is moving soon so I won't be able to use this library near my current home. I can't find an audiobook that won't cost be my entire checking account. And my Andriod sucks! A two-week warranty?! Seriously?! If any of you work for Andriod, I don't mean to offend you but your tablets suck! And if you're going to make something that is useful, give it a longer warranty or the promise of if it breaks without reason, you'll replace it or fix it! Honestly. **

**Well now that my ranting's done.**

**I am sorry to all of you who want to see what happens to the Gardner family next and are eagerly waiting the next chapter but until I get a new source of information I can't do much. However, this may help a little. I've decided to get started on my Duke Devlin and the Olympians stories. Who's excited for this? I know I am. Well, you'll find it under the crossover for Percy Jackson and the Olympians area. Hey, here's a challenge. I want all of you to guess at who you think is going to play Annabeth in this story. Please leave your theories in the review area below. **

**I love you all and am deeply sorry to all of you who want the next chapter. If you know anyplace where I can find this story online but don't have to pay anything or download anything, please let me know. **


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